If you have an Android phone, you know the pain that’s been trying to use Facebook’s official app. Okay, we’re exaggerating slightly, but it has been annoying. Fortunately, Facebook has heard our First World whining, and has substantially improved just about everything about the app.
It’s basically been entirely rebuilt from the ground up. Before it was a mixture of native application and “webview,” meaning it was essentially a very limited web browser. Now it’s entirely a native application, meaning everything works much more smoothly and there are fewer opportunities for things to go annoyingly wrong.
Also useful is the “Story Banner.” This is essentially like the function you see on the right-hand side on the website: A constantly updating report of who’s posting what.
I took it for a test drive and I’ve got to say, it was fairly impressive. Facebook for Android was just kinda… there before. Now it’s actually useful and very user-driven; it feels like an app, not a Web site being stuffed into a bunch of holes.
You should already see the update if you’ve got an Android phone, but if not you can download it on Google Play.
Facebook [Google Play]