Facebook for BlackBerry: Time for an Upgrade (See iPhone App for Clues)

By: Hillel Fuld

One of the trademark apps of the iPhone platform is the new edition of Facebook for iPhone. It is the most popular app by far, and not only due to the popularity of Facebook, but the app itself is amazing, which drives more downloads. What is so interesting, without getting into the heated debate surrounding the different mobile platforms, is that the very same app, or at least the app that is supposed to do the same thing, is one of the worst apps on the BlackBerry platform.

Facebook was obviously one of the first apps I downloaded when I first unboxed my Bold, and after using it, my first thought was: “This better not be the kind of apps available for BlackBerry”. I soon discovered that there are some pretty amazing apps out there for Berry users, but Facebook for BlackBerry is not one of them. The app is slow, buggy, lacks modern Facebook features, and generally provides a super negative user experience.

Why am I still using the app if it is so bad? There are no alternatives that I am aware of. We did discuss Snaptu last week, which happens to be one of my favorite BlackBerry apps, and it does include a Facebook client, but it is pretty basic, and does not include all the features I need in a Facebook app. The thing is, neither does the actual Facebook app, but there is one reason to leave the app on the phone, even though there is a very limited amount of application memory on the Bold. BlackBerry has done a fabulous job integrating your Facebook messaging into the BlackBerry’s messaging service. I get all my Facebook messages right to my inbox immediately, which is very convenient most of the time. I have not checked, but I am pretty sure that integration is dependent on the fact that the Facebook app be installed on the phone.

OK, so a little bit about the app… The main screen that you see when launching the app is your wall, the thing is, in my experience, the stream gets stuck and the app says “Refreshing Stream” for an extended period of time. You can also choose from a dropdown menu to view News Feed, Status Updates, Photos, and Links, which all lead to the “Refreshing Stream” thing again. After a few seconds, sometimes more, the updates appear, but a lot of times they did not. To be fair, I will say that viewing photos in Facebook is pretty darn slick in this app, with the ability to smoothly scroll between pictures using the BlackBerry scroll wheel.

Along the top of the app, there are some very basic icons that when hovered over display a popup of what the icon is. They are very poorly designed and completely unclear without the popup. The icons include News Feed, Notifications, Upload a Photo (not too shabby), Friends (also takes forever to display), Add a Friend, Write on a Wall, and Inbox.  Clicking on the device’s Options button brings up a long list of menu options such as Share, View My Profile, Go to Mobile Site, and an advanced Options screen with all the settings on how to link the app to your BlackBerry.

There you have it, the entire interface of the Facebook app for BlackBerry users. Seems pretty simplistic, doesn’t it? The app is way too simplistic, outdated, and buggy. This app was actually an improvement from the last version, which was nothing short of a disaster. I have been trying to figure out why someone does not develop a better Facebook app for BlackBerry users, and the only reason I could come up with is that people assume BlackBerry users are generally not big Facebookers. BlackBerry has a kinda corporate association with it, while Facebook has more of a high school connotation. That theory is of course shattered by the fact that there is no LinkedIn application for BlackBerry at all, something that boggles my mind all together, but that is a different discussion for another time.

Our Rating: 1/5

Download Link

Developer: Facebook

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