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Tag: facebook for android

  • Facebook Launches New Android Beta Testing Program

    Facebook just announced the launch of a new Android beta testing program, which it will use to improve its Android app.

    “The Facebook for Android beta program will help the team get direct feedback ahead of releases and fold it into new builds every month,” a Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews. “People who opt-in to the beta program will have access to the latest versions of Facebook for Android 7-10 days before the general release.”

    Anyone is free to join the program. You can do so here, then allow beta downloads by clicking “Become a Tester” in the Play Store. You have to join the Google Group before becoming a tester. From there, download the app to make sure you have it updated. Then, join the Facebook for Android Beta Testers group on Facebook and share your feedback.

    “The openness of Android has allowed us to innovate and build awesome products like Home and features like Chat Heads,” Facebook for Android product manager Ragavan Srinivasan says. “We are in the early days of Google’s beta program, but we’re excited to work on extending our testing coverage at scale and providing the best app experience to everyone using Facebook.”

    Facebook had a lot of nice things to say about Android in its announcement of the program, where you can read more about the company’s strategy for Android updates (which of course, is a bit more complicated than iOS due to fragmentation).

  • Facebook for Android Update Mimics Earlier iOS Update

    Facebook has just pushed an update for their Android app that mirrors changes pushed to their iOS app earlier this week.

    First off, the new version of Facebook for Android allows users to change their profile picture. This follows last month’s update, which gave users the ability to change their cover photos directly from the app. Earlier this week, Facebook finally gave iOS users the ability to change their cover photos.

    Facebook says that there are now fewer taps involved when users want to start a group message. Facebook also updated iOS to improve messaging, tweaking this same thing as well as making it easier to name and find group conversations.

    Lastly, Facebook now lets Android users hide stories and report spam from the news feed.

    Like with its iOS app, Facebook is keeping to the regular update schedule with its Android app. Ever since announcing that they would push app updates every 4 to 8 weeks, Facebook has, for the most part, made good on their word.

    You can grab the update right now over on Google Play.

  • Facebook for Android Updated with Faster Photos, Better Sharing, and Voice Messages

    Facebook has just updated their Android app with a few new features – faster photo viewing, improved sharing, and voice messaging.

    First up is faster photos. Facebook says that this applies to when you open photos from the app, they should simply appear more quickly. Second, users now have the ability to share friends’ stories to Timelines, pages, and groups. This expands the sharing functionality, which previously only allowed users to share their friends’ stories on their own Timelines.

    Last, Facebook for Android gets voice messaging – inside the main app. A couple of weeks ago, Facebook gave users of their standalone Facebook Messenger app the ability to send voice messages. This applied to both Android and iOS. Earlier this week, Facebook expanded their VoIP calling to the U.S., but only for iOS.

    About a month ago, Facebook for Android received a major upgrade. Version 2.0 launched as “twice as fast” in a number of areas, including photos, opening up the Timeline, and launching the app. This speed update for Android followed a similar type of speed update for Facebook for iOS. Users of both apps had complained about speed for some time, and Facebook rebuilt the apps from the ground up with that in mind.

    Facebook also just released Facebook Pages Manager for Android in the U.S. and the U.K.

  • Facebook for Android Finally Gets Much Needed Speed Boost

    After launching Facebook for iOS v.5.0 back in August, the company received praise from users for building a much faster, much more reliable app. We can all admit that pre-version 5.0, Facebook for iOS was a turd. Android users, who had also been complaining about the performance of their Facebook app, collectively asked, “Wait, what about us?”

    Now, Android users can rejoice. Facebook has released v.2.0, which they claim “is twice as fast when looking at photos and opening your Timeline and noticeably quicker to launch.”

    That’s pretty much the only thing new with the update: speed, speed, and more speed. You can now view photos instantly without leaving the news feed, and Facebook says that the news feed will also benefit from the update.

    When Facebook decided they needed to make the iOS app faster – much, much faster, they rebuilt it from the ground up, opting for Objective-C over HTML-5. With the all new Facebook for Android app, the company has taken a similar approach, rebuilding the app from the ground up.

    Here’s Facebook’s Android team engineer Frank Qixing Du explaining how they rebuilt the new Android app in pure native code:

    Today, we’re releasing a new version of Facebook for Android that’s been rebuilt in native code to improve speed and performance. To support the unique complexity of Facebook stories across devices, we’re moving from a hybrid native/webview to pure native code, allowing us to optimize the Facebook experience for faster loading, new user interfaces, disk cache, and so on.

    We rebuilt several of Facebook for Android’s core features in native code, including news feed and Timeline, to create a faster experience whether you’re opening the app, looking at photos, or interacting with friends. Now, you can comment and like a story more quickly, and photo loading is optimized to be much faster. We also built a new, automatically updated story banner to bubble up the newest stories, no matter where you are in news feed.

    The app is not yet available in the Google Play Store, but Facebook says that it should be there later today.

  • Facebookers Force Fed Terrible Android App in the Hopes It’ll Make Them Want to Fix It

    One down, on to the next one I guess.

    Today, Facebook unveiled its slick, blazingly fast new iOS app. Facebook is touting its impressive speed – over twice as fast as previous versions they say. And I’ll be damned – they’re telling the truth. It is, in fact, a great update to the previously horrendous iOS app.

    But Facebook employees won’t get to use it.

    That’s because Facebook management has instituted an iPhone-free policy around the workplace. According to “a handful of ex Facebookers” and other people familiar with the matter, Facebook employees are being twisted into using Android phones. And it’s not because they wants to piss off Apple or because they wants to get tight with Google, it instead has its roots in motivational technique.

    According to Business Insider, Facebook knows that its Android app is not very good, wants to change that, and thinks that forcing employees to use it will make it easier to fix what’s wrong with it.

    Sounds legit.

    Facebook did release an update for their Android app today, but it simply added multiple photo uploading and better event creation. No huge overhaul. No blazing fast speed. No big celebratory post from Mark Zuckerberg.

    So, will forcing employees to eat their own dog food help Facebook achieve the same kind of successful update with Android as they just unveiled with iOS? We’ll find out soon enough. And for Android users, the sooner the better.

  • Android Users Really Like Facebook Mobile Ads

    It seems that Facebook mobile ads are working. That may have been a bit of an understatement as our original report found that the CTR for mobile ads (sponsored stories) was four times higher than all ad placements. That’s not only working, it’s a bustling city of tiny advertising commerce. The question now is who’s driving this massive spike in mobile revenue?

    A report from ad management firm Optimal has revealed that Android users are seemingly in love with Facebook mobile ads. Android users click on ads 10 to 55 percent more than iOS users. Those are some startling figures, but Android users can’t get enough it seems. According to the same report, the conversion rate is through the roof as 28 to 109 percent more Android users engage with these ads than their iOS counterparts.

    Forbes spoke with a few advertisers who confirmed the findings. They found that iOS users still clicked on their fair share number of ads, even more than what’s clicked on the Web. Android was still much higher though with even a rate of sometimes more than 100 percent. It was found that Android users specifically like to click the Like button on mobile ads.

    The report from Optimal only further solidifies the findings from an NPD report back in May that found Facebook was far more popular on Android devices. The study found that the Android Facebook app as well as the mobile Web version had a reach of about 70 to 75 percent. Compile this with the fact that Android users spend 15 minutes a day on Facebook and you have the perfect recipe for mobile ad success.

    The other reason for success is the fact that Facebook for Android is just better than the iOS app according to Optimal CEO Rob Leathern. Speaking to Forbes, he said that brand pages suffer on iOS because users can only Like a page and not really interact with it in any meaningful way. He hopes that the new Facebook-iOS6 integration will improve mobile ads for Apple’s platform.

    In the end, this isn’t about a pissing contest between Android and iOS. There are much better ways for the platforms to compete beyond CTR for mobile ads. This is more about Android setting the example of how best to engage audiences on mobile platforms with advertising. People like to interact with brands and Facebook for Android does this very well. Once iOS gets people on board with the same features, I’m sure the numbers will mostly even out. Unfortunately, it still won’t fix the ungodly amount of time Android users waste their time on the constantly buggy Facebook app.

  • Facebook For Android Gets New Update; Users Wary

    The Facebook mobile app has drawn considerable complaints over the years from users, for everything from speed (or lack thereof) to the impairment or loss of certain functions like photo sharing and tagging. Every new update brings a few changes–which include fixes for some bugs and different layouts–and for every one thing that gets revamped, it seems, two more require attention, making users more wary of an impending update.

    According to Facebook, this new update brings in better messaging capability, including a lot more of the features that come with the desktop version such as online status and better organization of contact lists. It will also change the way photo sharing is done, which may have a little something to do with the social media site’s recent controversial acquisition of the photo app Instagram, a deal that went down for a cool $1 billion.

    Of course, every time Facebook changes anything, users have a lot to say about it.

    @aakarpost
    Aakar Anil    Updated my Facebook app for Android. Oh! Now Facebook has its own camera in desktop! Yes, that blue one! http://t.co/aVIcURFl 1 hour ago via Twitter for Android ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @PennyStarrJr
    Augusta Avallone    PS if you’re wondering why I haven’t responded to anything on Facebook, it’s cause the android app is fairly feeble. 1 minute ago via Twitter for Android ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @Brykins
    Brykins    Well done Facebook. Another Android app update that pushes me another step towards uninstalling. 11 minutes ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @zhenyanglee
    Zhen Yang    Yes very fast, but ugly, cluttered and amateurish design RT @lifehacker Facebook’s Android app is just about the slo… http://t.co/IyKq63zj 1 hour ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @mikey_p
    Michael Prasuhn    I started to open the Android Facebook app, but instead went home, got my laptop and drove to the coffeeshop. Was still faster than the app. 6 days ago via TweetCaster for Android ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto