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App Preview: Facebook 3.0 for iPhone

Chad Garrett — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:19:25 +0000

I love Facebook and this is a preview of the hotly anticipated Facebook for iPhone 3.0, coming soon to the iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPod touch.

Where to begin? When I first installed the app, I was frozen with anticipation. I have seen some sneak peeks on Facebook’s app page, but that was it. Now with it in my hands… Let’s begin by looking at the basics.

Home Screen

Facebook 3.0 has a brand-new redesigned home screen (see above). From here, you have access your fundamental Facebook actions such as your News Feed, Profile, Friends, Inbox, Chat, Requests, Events, Photos, Notes and Search. Notifications have been relocated to a very accessible location on the bottom of the screen that tells you the last notification you have received and the total number of new notifications. Tapping this bar brings up a notification list that is practically identical to the notifications list you have on the Web Browser. You can also tap the title bar at the top of the page to return home any time. For example, if you are commenting on a post and you are done, you can tap the word “Comments” at the top of the page and it will return you to the home screen. Tap again, and it takes you back to your comment. Nice.

New Feed

The News Feed has several new features. For starters you can now “like” posts! Yes, you now have the ability to comment and like a post on Facebook for iPhone (you can also unlike too). You can also add a video (with a 3GS) and record and upload directly to Facebook from your iPhone. If a post has a Web link in it, the link will now open within Facebook to view the Web Page. You no longer have to leave the app to go to Safari, through this is an option if you want.

If you separate your friends and paged into different lists, these have also carried over into Facebook 3.0. You can easily and quick access your News Feed, Links, Pages and more from one spot.

Profile

Your Facebook Profile is now here in it’s entirety! Profile pages are divided into three sections : Wall, Info and Photos. Wall remains relativity unchanged, however, Info gives you a lot of information now. For instance, when viewing another persons profile, you can see how many friends you have in common, their number of total friends and what Pages they are a fan of. Clicking on any of these choices will take you to that list. From their profile you can also send them a message, Poke them and add as a favorite on your home screen! That is right, the home screen can also be customized with your favorite friends or pages!

Friends

This section contains your typical listing of friends, but now if they have their phone number in Facebook, you are given an icon to tap next to their name. When tapped, it will display quick links for their numbers. Example: Land, Mobile, SMS. Very nice if you don’t have every single friend in your address book, this is an excellent replacement! You also have your Pages here too. This is a great, quick way to access the pages you are a fan of.

Inbox

The Inbox remains relatively unchanged except for the added option of Updates for your pages. If a Page uses this feature and you have it activated, you will see your favorite Page updates in the Inbox too under its own section.

Chat

Chat is another section that has not altered too much from Facebook 2.0. One of the new feature is the Online/Idle icons next to your friends so you know their status.

Requests

Not much here, any pending friend requests you have will appear on this button of the home screen with the red badge number of pending requests.

Events

New to Facebook 3.0, events have a simple scrolling list of upcoming and past events. When you tap on an event, you enter your RSVP and see a guest list broken down into Confirmed, Maybe, Declined and Awaiting. Very nice. Do you also enjoy the Birthday feature of Facebook on your desktop that shows you when your friends have a Birthday? Well, Birthdays have been added to Events as well! Click on the Events tab and you have a whole list of your friends Birthdays divided by month.

Photos

Photos in Facebook 3.0 have had a big change. First, when you tap an album, you get a page of thumbnails like the Photos app on the iPhone. This makes it a lot easier to find photos or get an overview of an album. You can now very easily show or hide tags. Previously, it seemed that tags would appear randomly, now it is much easier. You can Like and make a photo a profile picture right from Photos!

Notes

New to the mix of Facebook 3.0 apps is Notes. When you tap on Notes, you get a listing of all of your notes on Facebook. You can edit notes and create new ones. I was curious about the note creation process on the iPhone and decided to enter some basic HTML to format my note, just like on the desktop. Know what? IT WORKED! That is right, you can add basic HTML tags to your notes and it will format the note accordingly. The only thing missing is the ability to attach a photo to your note. This new feature has me debating whether I should bother with my own traditional personal blogging and just blog from within Facebook… we are almost there…

Search

Searching from the home screen gives you a few filters. You can search for Friends, Everyone or Pages. Typing in a name for Friends and Everyone behaves as you would expect, but the new ability to add pages is really awesome. I am using Facebook more and more for product, news and general “fan” updates. This new feature is really convenient.

Posting

Posting has one of my biggest grips addressed from the previous version of Facebook; the “Send” button (renamed to Share) has been moved to the TOP of the screen so I no longer post accidentally while typing!

Add a Favorite

Lastly, from the home screen you can add your favorite friends and pages to the home screen. You can flick to the left just like the iPhone home screen and have quick access to you the people you care about the most.

Issues and Conclusion

This is one phenomenal update to Facebook for iPhone, however, it is not without its shortcomings. To name a few, you receive an error message when you try to play a video that has been uploaded to Facebook. The error reads “Facebook Video cannot yet be played on this device”. Not sure what that means, but it tells me that it will be coming in s future update. If you have posted a YouTube video to Facebook though, it will open YouTube’s site in the Facebook app and you can watch the video.

I have also encountered the infamous ”Error, Your comment could not be posted at this time” message. I had thought this was resolved in the last version of Facebook. I have not seen this error for quite some time.

Overall, I could not be happier. This version of Facebook is leaps and bounds better then version 2.0. The developer, Joe Hewitt, deserves kudos for his work her. Joe has also promised push notifications and other enhancements for 3.1 to be released later this year.

The promise of the iPhone is to have a mobile computer in your pocket. The iPhone is able to deliver on this promise because there are developers out there like Joe Hewitt that keep making apps better and better. Thank you Joe.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Preview: Facebook 3.0 for iPhone

TiPb Q&A: MagicPad Explains Cut and Paste Proof of Concept

Rene Ritchie — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:55:15 +0000

Tired of waiting for a cut, copy, and paste on the iPhone? MagicPad — a Note App replacement that also features Rich Text editing (buh-bye Marker Felt!) — sure was. Witness the above proof-of-concept video. Ladies and gentlemen, the holy grail of iPhone feature.

Curious as to how they implemented their solution, and what challenges they faced? So were we, so we asked them. Read on for their answer!

Head of Product Development for Proximi, Juviwhale, told TiPb:

“The greatest challenge we faced when while developing MagicPad was attempting to develop a User Interface solution for text selection, copying and pasting on the iPhone that was simple and elegant yet versatile enough to be applied system wide.

What we have implemented in MagicPad is the first step towards a larger goal. We feel that MagicPad is a case study for the implemetation of standard UI for text selection and actions on the iPhone.

We also hope that Apple will soon define and implement a user interface for the iPhone which will make the demand for our product evaporate.

MagicPad is a starting point, a limited demonstration of what we are proposing as a candidate User Interface for text actions on the iPhone. We understand that whatever User Interface Apple implements will most likley define how users interact we touchscreen interfaces for generations.

We will actually detail our full comprehesive UI with a step-by-step video tutorialls on how our text editing system could work accross the iphone on our website shortly.”

The referenced video, which is basically our thesis statement and thought process behind our proposed system and how it would integrate system-wide, should be on our site shortly. We are not marginalizing the complexity of the issue and understand why Apple has taken so long to implement something; copy & paste on the touchscreen is akin to the next generation of right-click. An elegant solution doesn’t just happen overnight, and MagicPad is hopefully just a launching point.

Just like early Mac developers helped further push the platform and provide impetus for solutions Apple has not yet had considered, here’s hoping Apps like MagicPad do to same for the iPhone.

Thanks to Proximi, Brian Radmin, and Juviwhale.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Q&A: MagicPad Explains Cut and Paste Proof of Concept

App Preview: 1Password for the iPhone — for FREE!

Rene Ritchie — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:28:49 +0000

Confession: I use 1Password on the Mac a lot. I just used it to login so I could write this preview. I use it (synced via keychain) to my desktop at home, and I’ve used the various incarnations of the 1Password javascript bookmarklet on the original iPhone 2G. But now they’ve gone native, baby!

Internet security is a a huge concern, and with mobile internet security we ain’t seen nothing yet. Browsers the caliber of MobileSafari make it possible to do our transactions on the go, be it logging into our favorite social network, or doing some emergency banking on the road. But what if we get out of the cab and leave our iPhone behind? If it gets snatched? What if someone else takes possession of the tiny little device with all our precious logins on it?

Read on to find out!

The good: 1Password has us covered, proving as innovative on the handset as they’ve always been on the desktop. Breaking things out into 2 categories, they provide a simple 4-digit PIN to access lower security logins (i.e., for a forum), and a full blown master password for high security items (i.e. your credit card account). And the interface? Gorgeous.

If you haven’t previously used 1Password, just start entering your credentials and you’re good to go. If you’ve already built up a 1Password store on your Mac, setup looks a tad more involved, favoring security over convenience in the age old battle, but given the focus of the app that’s certainly understandable. If you’re familiar with how Apple’s Remote app works, this isn’t dissimilar — search for networked 1Passwords on your Mac, establish trust, and then sync.

The bad: Due to Apple’s SDK restrictions, 1Password doesn’t work with MobileSafari the way it works with regular Safari on the laptop. Basically, Apple doesn’t allow plugins. To get around that, 1Password has built in it’s own web browser. That means you may end up using a different app to access your secure sites than you use for casual browsing. Not a deal breaker for some — and there doesn’t appear to be an alternative approach — but it’s something to consider.

Also, they apparently let their programmers sleep, so we won’t get features like wallet items, identities, password history, folders, search, etc. until version 1.1. What about my pseudo-random password generator? I use that all the time on the Mac! (Or did I just answer my own sync-enabled question?)

The unbelievable: According to the fine folks at Agile Web Solutions, for a limited time the 1Password App Store app will be given away FREE!

Not able to try it out first-hand yet, I’ll have to wait for Apple to clear 1Password for App Store launch to see if the reality lives up to the concept, but they’ve sure made it a no-brainer to download and try out.

Check out their Switcher’s Blog for detailed screenshots and setup instructions.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Preview: 1Password for the iPhone — for FREE!