QuickAdvice: Facebook Gets Squared With Qubical
Qubical ($1.99) by Aleryon brings a fresh new take on Facebook on your iDevice.
If you want to view Facebook in an entirely new perspective on your iPhone or iPad, then Qubical is the new kid on the block.
Once you log in, you get cubes that display all of your friends' profile pictures on a cube. The app will tell you how many friends are on this first cube; if you have more friends, there will be more additional cubes for you to scroll to using the arrows at the top. The initial loading period for all of your friends' profile pictures can take a while, depending on how popular you are.
You can use multitouch gestures to zoom in and out of the cube, and move it around with your finger. Find a friend that you want to view? Tap their photo on the cube to select it, then double tap it to go to their profile.
If you need to find someone immediately, there's a search option. Enter the name and hit Search, and their photo will stand out amongst all other dimmed out photos.
When you view someones profile, you get the basic wall posts and status updates that you normally see. You can view their profile picture as well as mutual friends. The most impressive thing that Qubicle brings though, is how you view someone's photos.
If you hit the Albums tab, you get a listing of the viewable albums (dependent on privacy settings) and you can view these albums in the same cube fashion. It uses the same multitouch gestures and finger touch to move around. Each side of the photo cube is a tad transparent, so the other sides of the cube can be seen faintly through the photo. It gives the cube a sense of depth in a 2-D space.
Both the friend cube and photo cube have an 'auto-rotate' option - just tap that button with the axis on it and the cube will start rotating counter-clockwise. If you want to go back to the original position of the cube, just tap that button with a cube on it.
You can even view your live feed normally by tapping that button with the RSS button on the main screen (friend cube). The button with the silhouette of a person takes you to your own profile. The friend cube can be reloaded or you can log out of your account using the button with the upward arrow.
This is a new take on viewing Facebook, for sure. I'm not sure if it's entirely practical, but it's a fun and unique app.
Both the iPhone and iPad versions are pretty much the same, except the iPad provides more screen estate so there's more room to move around in. Moving the cubes around is pretty smooth (at least on the iPad and iPhone 4) and I haven't had any crashes, which is great for a 1.0 app.
If you want an entirely new way to view Facebook, then definitely give this app a shot.
