Facebook to Speed up Their iPhone app
Last month it was revealed that more Americans are accessing Facebook via their mobile phone than via their computers, and with the recent IPO emphasising the importance of mobile to the future success of the company it's crucial that they get their mobile offering right.
The Facebook iPhone app is a major component of these plans, but until now it has not been a favourite of Facebook users. Many complain frequently about the slowness of the app, with 21,000 of the 38,000 reviews on Apple's App Store giving it just a 1 star rating. So news today about plans to speed up Facebook's iPhone app will be welcomed by all.
According to two Facebook engineers, the company has completely rebuilt the iOS application to optimise it for speed. Whilst there has yet to be any official announcement from Facebook on the matter, the engineers revealed that the new app will built using Objective-C rather than HTML5 with the pure aim of making it faster.
Whilst the new app will be faster (hopefully), it won't contain any additional features, and will be no nearer to solving the difficulties Facebook face in monetizing their mobile traffic.
According to the engineers, the new Facebook iOS app is being tested by Facebook employees and should be released sometime this summer. Initial tests of the new app suggests it is an incredible improvement on the existing app.
So if you're a Facebook user with an iPhone you can expect a much happier experience in the coming months. Watch this space.
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