Joe Hewitt, the developer behind the iPhone version of Facebook, just graced my inbox with a copy of the Facebook 3.0 app he submitted to the App Store.
It feels more like the full Facebook than ever before and the whole interface is cleaner, snappier and much more bug-free, though there’s still a few things you can’t do with it.
Below is the list of features in 3.0 Hewitt shared earlier this summer followed by my initial impressions.
1. The “new” News Feed
The news feed now matches what I see on the full Web-based version, so I no longer have to look at all those poor saps I’ve hidden when I browse Facebook for iPhone. Though there’s still no ability to hide/unhide people while inside the app.
2. Like
Works just as you would expect it to. Though Facebook as a whole needs to fix the notification system so you don’t receive a bunch of notifications after liking something from people you don’t know. At least make it optional.
Hewitt has already said he’s started on version 3.1, which should be focused on Push Notifications.
My hope is Push Notifications are implemented in a very robust and customizable way. In other words, users should have the ability to toggle whether a text alert is sent out when someone comments on something I’ve liked. The same is true for wall posts, messages, etc.
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
Yes, but no access to an event’s wall.
4. Notes
Yes, with the ability to edit. Though no ability to tag people in notes, which is arguably a good thing as it ensures some folks won’t be tagging people who aren’t actually in their notes. You know who you are.
5. Pages
Yes! You can now see and fully interact with pages. You can also add them to the new home screen, but read on for more on that.
6. Create new photo albums – Yes.
7. Upload photos to any album – Yes.
8. Zoom into photos – Yes.
9. Easier photo tagging – Yes, awesome.
10. Profile Pictures albums – Yes.
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
This is probably the biggest and coolest addition to Facebook 3.0, though it has one critical flaw in the current release.
The home screen features 9 default boxes as seen in the first screenshot above.
You can add fan pages and people to additional pages of the home screen. It works very much like the iPhone home screen. Unfortunately, once you add something to these pages you can’t move or delete it. You have to delete and reinstall the whole Facebook app to start with a fresh home screen. You also can’t replace one of those 9 default boxes on the first page with something else.
UPDATE: You can remove things from your favorites, but you cannot move them.
I can see this as being the biggest frustration people will have with Facebook 3.0. I’ve already asked Hewitt about it and he said full editing of the home screen is planned for the 3.1 update.
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen – Yes, see above.
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply) – Finally, yes!
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
Yes. More people need to enter contact information into Facebook, but I was surprised by the decent number of friends who already had phone numbers in their profiles.
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call – Yes.
Other additions of note:
Video uploading from an iPhone 3GS. Hewitt said he didn’t plan to include this feature in the 3.0 release but was surprised by how easy it was to implement and, sure enough, video uploads work great.
But you still can’t play Facebook videos on iPhone.
When you try to play the video you get an alert stating “Facebook Video can not yet be played on this device.”
I’m sure it’s in Facebook’s best interests to encode Quicktime versions of their videos the same way Youtube does. According to Insidefacebook, there are nearly 12 million monthly active users of the iPhone Facebook app. That means the iPhone is too big a video platform to ignore.
Perhaps this pop-up is just temporary? Please, Facebook, it’s time to get down with the Quicktime.
Youtube videos, on the other hand, play perfectly inside the Facebook app. When you’re done watching a video you’re still inside Facebook.
Here’s hoping for a quick approval from Apple for Facebook 3.0. We’ll let you know on AppAdvice and on Twitter as soon as it goes live.
If the anticipation isn’t already killing you, Hewitt also posted the “What’s New” text as it will appear on the App Store:
- See your upcoming Events and RSVP
- See your friends’ birthdays
- See Pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
- Write Notes and read your friends’ Notes
- Upload videos from an iPhone 3GS
- Upload photos to any album
- Complete photo management (create albums, delete albums, delete photos, delete photo tags)
- Change your Profile Picture
- Zoom into photos
- Like posts and photos
- See the same News Feed as the Facebook website
- Visit links in a built-in web browser
- See all of your friends’ friends and Pages
- See mutual friends
- Easily search for people and Pages
- Make friend requests
- Become a fan of Pages
- Quickly call or text your friends
- Create shortcuts to your favorite friends and Pages
- Friends sorted by first or last name according to your settings
- Chat friends sorted alphabeticaly
why in the world they add access to Event but doesn’t allow to see the wall?
for my point of view, this was already the most irritating missing feature in the current version. when you use this feature to organize an event and then, need to stay in touch when your people, I can’t use the app and need to find access to the whole site.
I personnally don’t understand the complexity to see this event wall.
No push notifications in this version FYI. 3.1 will bring push notifications finally.
Any idea how long ago this was submitted? I really want to play with it
It was submitted just two days ago. People have been hoping for a quick approval given the importance of Facebook on the iPhone, but you never know how long it’s going to take.
Whens it gonna come out?
Can we uploaded more than one picture at a time yet?
Yes, would very much like to be able to upload more than one picture at a time.
Do we get landscape keyboard for typing?
Alex, Wayne and Ryan:
No landscape keyboard and no multiple photo uploading.
Looks very good, I can’t wait for it to get approved.
Can we save pictures from Facebook now?
U can upload multiple photos right now using an app called “pixelpipe”. Works great
Holy cow! So many new features!
Can we add friends within the app yet? Am I missing something?
You already can add friends in 2.0, just go to the Friends tab and type their email address or name. It will search more than just your friends list.
OH my go I feel so stupid for not doing that. Thanks. I’m going to go get smarter now.
Haha, no prob, I didn’t know about it right away either.
I guess it’s a big improvement. One cannot complain about free apps however, I was wishing facebook for iPhone would be full featured. iPhone has safari, why not concentrate on making the iPhone friendly page fully featured? Instead, we still have a limited version of facebook on the iphone no matter how we access it. Cool, yes. Functional, sort of. Beggars can’t be choosers.
He he he, he said Snappier!!
Wow, this really looks nice! I can’t wait for it to get approved and onto my iPhone. Since I will be on the road quite a lot in the next months, such apps (Facebook/Twitter) are of double worth to me.
I hope they fix the issue when you are looking at friends pictures and click more pics it crashes…that gets on my nerves so bad.
Will i finally be able to make a message as unread??? There is no way to flag emails for your attention later
Love the app, but everytime I try and delete a post off of my wall it just re-appears… Hope that is fixed…
It’s a cool update, push notifications r definately needed or shall I say demanded, but I have to hand to you, there were a lot covered in this update, unlike recent update for any apps I have already! Keep up the good work!
Will I be able to use built in facebook apps such as quizs or things like that?
Ive got all these pictures of me on facebook but i cant seem 2 b able 2 get the pictures 2 show up on my profile picture…little help please!!!
Will you be able to view someones friendlist
You might also mention that you cannot read the comments on your own Notes by going to the Notes section. You can only see them if a Note you wrote is still on your own feed list, and click on the Comments link under it.
Hi – it is actually possible to delete/rearrange icons and favourites on the facebook homescreen – just push and hold like on the iphone homescreen and the icons start wobbling! It works really well.
Thanks for the great work!
I don’t know how, but he somehow added that feature after giving me my preview version.
when will it show all activities on profiles? it doesn’t post when friends added you or when they edit there pro.. only states that someone played a game or changed there status or added pics, doesn’t show everything.. and how can you tell when someone has poked you? you can poke but can not tell if you were poked back…
As yet there is no way to delete friends or messages in your inbox. These would both be very useful basic features to add in the next update. Especially the ability to delete read emails. Please look into this. Thanks