Picking Up Where It Left Off, Facebook Client Pica Returns With Lots Of New Features

In addition to its main client for iOS, Facebook has released Facebook Messenger, Facebook Pages Manager, and Facebook Camera in the App Store. Oh, and it has also purchased quite a few apps, including, of course, Instagram. And most recently, it has launched App Center, a quasi-store for apps that make use of Facebook login. But amid all of these new apps, acquisitions, and add-ons, it seems that all users really want is for the official Facebook iOS app to be rid of its shortcomings. Alas, the app remains inadequate for the most part, and so users may be in want of a different Facebook client. If you're such a user and you're on the lookout for an alternative app, you can do a lot worse than using the newly updated Pica app. After many months of inactivity, Pica is now back, and it has brought with it plenty of improvements. To start with, the app now loads successfully, so an update to the AppAdvice AppGuide blurb for the app, which mentions its loading bug, is perhaps in order. Beyond its loading screen, the app looks a lot like Facebook's own. But it does offer speedy interactions, springy animations à la Tweetbot, plus the following new features:

Smart gestures

Multiple accounts support

Read/comment/like on your news feed

Filter your news feed by friend list/network

Instapaper and Pocket support

Favorite list for quick access of your best friends, pages, groups and posts

Keep up with friends via chat

Facebook message

Update status, share photo, check in from one single interface - accessible everywhere in the app

Full screen photo viewer with tags, comments and likes

Events and birthday lists

Optimized for the new iPad's Retina display, Pica – a Facebook Client for iPad is available in the App Store for $0.99. Give it a try and see if you'll like it enough to "unlike" Facebook's official app off your iPad once and for all. Or at least until Mark Zuckerberg and company decide to fix it.