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Tag: facebook sdk for ios

  • Facebook SDK For Android Gets Updated

    Facebook SDK For Android Gets Updated

    In mid-September, Facebook released a new iOS SDK to coincide with the release of iOS 7. The Android SDK will most likely receive a similar update later this month with the expected launch of Android 4.4, but developers can take advantage of a new SDK update now as well.

    Facebook announced this morning that its Android SDK has now been updated to version 3.5.2. It’s a minor update that includes a bug fix for a possible exception in activateApp() when running older versions of the Facebook app for Android. You can grab the newest version of the SDK here.

    As for other updates, Facebook announced earlier this week that it now offers new mobile app ads to developers. These new mobile app ads come in the following forms: Open Link, Use App, Shop Now, Watch Video, Listen Now, Book Now and Play Game. The hope is that these ads will drive further engagement with mobile apps that use Facebook’s mobile SDK.

    Facebook is also adding more insights to its App Insights page to include Login Dialog and App Center conversions. The former will keep track of the number of users who sign up for your app via Facebook while the latter will keep track of the number of users that are driven to your app through App Center. You can check out some best practices for Login Dialog here, and for App Center here.

    On a final note, Facebook has now released its talks at Unite regarding how game developers can integrate Facebook into their Unity applications through the Facebook SDK for Unity. There are three talks in total:

    Facebook SDK For Unity on iOS

    Facebook SDK for Unity on Android

    Facebook SDK for Unity on Facebook Canvas

    [Image: Facebook Developers]

  • Facebook SDK For iOS 7 Now Available

    Facebook SDK For iOS 7 Now Available

    If you have an older iDevice sitting around the house, you may have noticed that it looks a little more expressive these days thanks to the recent iOS 7 update that hit on Wednesday. Facebook has already released an iOS 7 version of its app, and now its iOS 7 SDK is going out to developers.

    Facebook announced Wednesday evening that Facebook iOS SDK 3.8 is now out of beta and available to everyone. This new version of the SDK includes support for iOS 7, Xcode 5, and 64-bit apps.

    Beyond its newfound support for iOS 7, the new SDK also includes makes it easier for apps to handle permission changes. Let’s say for instance that a user installs your app on both their iPhone 5S and their iPad. That user gives both versions of your app permission to post content on their wall, but soon decides to limit what the iPad app can post. Normally, that would result in some problems, but the new SDK will automatically refresh permissions once a day to ensure things run smoothly.

    If you want to know more about Facebook’s new iOS SDK, check out the change log.

    Moving on, Facebook also announced that it’s increasing the size of images for link page posts. You may have noticed this already on the desktop version of Facebook, but the mobile version is getting larger images as well. To be more specific, desktop link page post images are now eight times larger while mobile images are four times larger.

    Facebook says that developers should follow these tips to take advantage of the new image sizes:

  • Use images that are 1200 x 630px or greater for the best display on high-resolution devices. At the minimum you should use images that are 600 x 315px to display link page posts with larger images.
  • Use images that have an aspect ratio of 1.91:1. Try to keep your images as close to this aspect ratio as possible to avoid any cropping in News Feed.
  • Use the og:image tag to choose the image that you want to share. If you don’t use the og:image tag, users can choose the image they want to post, giving them a chance to select an image that is poor quality.

    • Finally, Facebook announced that advertisers can now target users by using Apple’s standard advertising identifier – iOS IDFAs. Facebook says it’s as simple as uploading a list of your users’ iOS IFDAs into the Power Editor, and sending out ads about your app when you see fit.

    [Image: Facebook iOS SDK]

  • Facebook Encourages Developers To Upgrade To Its iOS 7 SDK

    Current rumors suggest that the iPhone 5S and iOS 7 are only a month away. As such, Facebook is prepping its SDK for the eventual release of the newest version of iOS and wants its developers to be ready as well.

    In an update on the Facebook Developers blog, Jason Clark writes that Facebook is doing things a little differently this time around in regards to its iOS development. Instead of waiting for the final release to start issuing bug fixes, Facebook is working to address as many bugs as possible before launch. He also says that any developer working on iOS 7 will want to upgrade to Facebook SDK for iOS 3.7.1 or newer. You can grab that here.

    Alongside the changes to its iOS development, Clark also announced some changes to Facebook’s platform policies. For starters, developers are no longer required to administer promotions only within apps. They can now send out promotions on Page Timelines and Facebook Web apps. Obviously, you still can’t administer promotions on personal Timelines.

    The other policy change allows developers to use user data in advertisements. Facebook recently just settled a lawsuit regarding this very issue so the social network now says that developers must obtain explicit permission from users to use their data in advertisements.

    To learn all about these new changes, check out Facebook’s very informative video on the subject:

    [Image: Facebook Developers]

  • Facebook SDK For iOS Updated To Version 3.1.1

    Facebook recently updated its iOS SDK to version 3.1 to take advantage of iOS 6. The update brought a number of other features, but there’s still much work to be done. Facebook now has a smaller update available that you’ll want to grab as soon as possible.

    Facebook announced today that version 3.1.1 of the Facebook SDK for iOS is now available. Developers can look forward to bug fixes related to the iOS 6 native Auth Dialog, and updates for Scrumptious to better demonstrate iOS 6 integration. The update all fixes a SBJson naming conflict.

    The social network also wants to remind developers that all apps must have a valid privacy policy URL. Some developers might forget about it so Facebook is implementing an alert system in the App Dashboard that will notify developers if there is no URL. Those that choose to ignore the warning will have their app placed in Sandbox mode, but you can easily get your app back up and running by adding a URL to your privacy policy.

    With this being the first Wednesday of the month, Facebook has also announced the breaking changes that are going into effect on January 9. The first is the removal of the splash_screen_url and gamebar_image_url app properties. They are also removing all of the dashboard REST API methods. For help with this particular change, check out the documentation. Finally, Facebook will use canonical URLs when fetching data using the link_stat FQL table.

    As for the bug report, Facebook announced that 200 bugs were reported since last week. Out of thos 200, 23 were fixed and 26 were accepted for further review. You can check out the full list of bug fixes here.