Facebook has released a new native Facebook app for iOS, which company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has dubbed “a big step forward”.
According to Zuckerberg, the application was completely rewritten from the ground up in order to focus on speed. The Facebook iOS app has been notoriously slow, and in the App Store the majority of users gave the old app a less than stellar one-star rating.
Facebook says the new Facebook iOS app is twice as fast as the previous version. “As you scroll down your news feed, all your friends' stories appear faster than ever. A banner lets you know when new stories come in, and you can tap once to immediately see the latest updates.” All the elements of the standalone Facebook Messenger app have now also been incorporated in the new iOS app.
Facebook engineer Jonathan Dann says: “The development of this new app signals a shift in how Facebook is building mobile products, with a focus on digging deep into individual platforms.”
In order to cater for the explosion of mobile devices over the last few years, Dann says Facebook has historically leveraged HTML5 to build and distribute Facebook across all devices, platforms, networks and regions.
Facebook has also been working closely with Apple on deeply integrating the social network into the next iteration of iOS - due to be officially launched in September.
“We truly believe mobile is the best platform for Facebook, and the new Facebook for iOS is just one of our steps to ensure you have best Facebook experience anytime, anywhere,” says Dann.
With the iOS app revamped, Facebook's next priority is its Android experience. According to reports, Facebook employees are being encouraged to use Android devices. It is said that by being forced to access Facebook on Android, Facebook employees will take fixing the problems and improving the user experience more seriously.
Mobile mission
It is no secret that mobile is a major stumbling block for Facebook, and finding success in the mobile space is vital for the future of the company. Facebook recently revealed that more than 102 million users are accessing the social network from their mobile phones only - a 23% increase from March this year.
According to the social network, the sequential quarterly growth of daily active users (DAUs) from 526 million to 552 million is almost solely driven by mobile.
“During the second quarter of 2012, the number of DAUs using personal computers was essentially flat, and declined modestly in certain key markets such as the US and Europe, while mobile DAUs continued to increase.”
Zuckerberg has said in the past that mobile is a key focus area for Facebook looking forward: “Mobile is a huge opportunity for Facebook. On average, mobile users are around 20% more likely to use Facebook on any given day.
“So mobile not only gives us the potential to connect more people with our services, but it also gives us the ability to provide more value and a more deeply engaging experience.”
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