The much anticipated Facebook application for Android phones quietly launched this morning. Our review, including a video, are below.
This is an “official” Facebook app, the company tells us, even though the page says “This application was not developed by Facebook.” That’s because, as we previously reported, Google has actually built this themselves – obviously having a Facebook application was strategically important to them.
The application is, to put it magnanimously, “feature light.” There is no messaging at all, just the news stream, the ability to post status updates, and the ability to take/upload photos to Facebook. Most of the cool stuff iPhone users have with their 3.0 app just aren’t available for Android yet.
One thing it does well, though – it’s fast. When I was using an iPhone I always just went to Facebook via the browser because the app was way too slow to be usable. The Android app is brisk, and whisks you through the three or four functions quickly and without much of a hitch. Another nice feature are notifications of new events – since Android apps can run in the background you’ll optionally see this stuff even when you aren’t actively using the app.
I haven’t seen any bugs yet, although some commenters on the Facebook page are saying otherwise.