Facebook gets more than a facelift with new update

If you've been using the Facebook app for any length of time on your phone, chances are you've learned to hate it with a passion. From incredibly delayed messages to general slowness and lack of usability, messed up pictures, lack of apps, games, and more, it's been a serious letdown compared to the web page experience for me.

Fortunately, the company released an update in the Market today that addresses most of the problems I've had with the mobile version. Officially they list seven updates, but the app feels like the old one was thrown away and this one built from the ground up.

Push notifications have been added, which means that a message sent to you is probably on your phone within a second. No more 15 minute delays. You can browse through friends, and friends of friends with no delays like the last versions had, and you can see and follow tags on pictures now, zoom in, out, etc. It's a whole new picture experience.

Everything you access is probably on the main screen and available with a tap or two.

Incoming messages, requests, etc. can be seen and responded to without losing your place on whatever page you're on.

You supposedly now also have access to your favorite games and apps on the go, but I don't see any way to add new apps from the application; the apps I have on Facebook are showing, though.

The latest version of Facebook for Android is what it really should have been a long time ago. It's finally a useful contender, in my opinion, to the web page version and worth looking at again if you abandoned it before.

Links: Market (EVO) | Market (web)