Facebook iPhone App Updated… Still No iPad Love
By: Hillel Fuld
Ever since I got my iPad, the most disappointing app for me has been none other than Facebook. The reason this is interesting is because it is my favorite app on the iPhone, and we are talking about the exact same app. How does that work?
It is no secret that the iPad screen is a wee bit larger than the iPhone’s. In fact, if I had a dime for every person that took one look at my iPad and said “So basically it’s an iPod Touch with a big screen.”, I would be a rich man (OK, maybe not rich, but I would have at least another Dollar or two in my bank account). While the larger screen turns the iPad into a whole new category of computing devices, it also causes some serious issues for apps.
Yes, there are universal apps that work on both the iPhone and iPad, and then there are iPad specific apps that are developed exclusively for the iPad. However, what about those apps you use on your iPhone that were not optimized for the iPad? Well, Apple so cleverly came up with a solution with the 2x button on the iPad that scales the app up and makes it approximately the size of the iPad’s screen. Sounds perfect, right? Yea, not really.
What this essentially does is it takes the app that is optimized for a 3.5′ screen and stretches it out to fit on a 9.7′ screen, and to put it nicely, it does not do wonders for the graphics of the app. Now truth be told, most apps that I have grown to love on the iPhone are now available in a big brother version with “HD” stuck onto the end of its name. This is true for Angry Birds, it is true for Real Racing, and others. Then there are others that are just universal and do not have the word “HD” in their title but they look perfect on the iPad. This category includes IM+, Dropbox, and others.
However, one of the, if not the number one most popular iPhone app, Facebook, is yet to release an iPad version. Now, this made sense to me since we had read a few months ago how the developer of the app quit the project as a result of the famous Apple rejections policy (sign this 10 second petition to protest that policy). However, the app was updated today to support iOS 4. That means it now has high resolution icons to support the Retina display. It also has the ability to run in the background, in addition to some other minor bug fixes and enhancements.
However, to my utter surprise and disappointment, it does not support the iPad. In fact, this was such a shock to me that when I saw the updated app in iTunes, I just assumed that means it would now be a universal app. The thought of it not supporting the iPad did not even cross my mind, to the extent that I actually tweeted this. A friend, Kfir Pravda (follow him, he’s a smart dude) pointed out that it does not in fact support the iPad.
As soon as I launched the new app, it was confirmed, the Facebook app still looked like crap on the iPad screen. Now to Facebook I ask one question: Why? Why would you update this wildly popular app and not add iPad support? I am really very interested to hear an explanation…
Perhaps three million iPads users (that was last week, knowing Apple, we are nearing four now) is not enough of an audience for you to support the new device? Well, with over 500 million users and a whopping 260 billion monthly page views, that does make sense, but c’mon Facebook, give us iPad owners some lovin and release an iPad app. I can’t stand looking at that pixelated app any longer.
What do you think the explanation is that the new Facebook app is not optimized for the iPad? Please let us know in the comments.
