Not too much time ago microsoft released a native facebook app for windows mobile. Interestingly facebook made their own Iphone app, but it seems like they weren’t too keen on releasing one for windows mobile. That’s why microsoft had to take this task. I was very quick to install the app, and i’m using it for about two months now. So let’s see if windows mobile users finally get a worthy facebook app with my following review.
The home screen will show you the “news feed” tab by default. This is were you can have a quick overview of the recent actions (including status updates as well as any photo updates/changes) made by your friends. As you can see on the following screen the user interface is very nice and finger friendly. Also please notice that you can access context menues nearly on every page by tapping and holding on the touchscreen.
Depending on the news entry you have different options. If somebody uploads a new picture to an album, you have the options to view the profile of the user or the pictures of the album. The soft keys on all homescreen tabs are the same: refresh for reloading and updating the current screen, and menu for opening the function list for uploading pics/videos and updating the own status.
The second tab on the homescreen is called “status updates”. This is were you can see all the status changes of your friends sorted by date.
The photos tab will show you all the picture notifications of your friends. For example if your friend has been marked on any picture, you will find an entry on this page.
Now lets take a look at the second category, which is basically your personal facebook profile. You have three tabs here: wall, info and photos. The wall is the page were you can see your recent activtities, as well as notifications which have been left on your wall by your friends.
One thing which is a major problem with this app can be seen on the following screenshot. You can see on my wall that i have left a message on one of my friends pictures. But there is no way to see WHAT i actually wrote for this pic, or if the picture has comments from other people too. This problem wouldn’t be that bad if it was only affecting the own comments, but sadly its the same case with your friends comments. So you can see that your friend left a message on a picture of somebody, but you can’t see the content of the comment, which is really an annoying issue.
Your info page will show your personal data like name, date of birth, relationship, email and so on.
The last category shows your uploaded pictures sorted by album and upload source.
On nearly all of your pages you’ll see the left soft button called “update status”. With this option you can update your facebook status which will be shown on your wall and sent to all your friends.
The third page is on the main navigation provides an alphabetically sorted list of all friends. By tapping and holding on an entry you can choose to view the profile of your friend or to send a message.
Profiles of your friends have the exact same tabs as your own profile, namely: wall, info and photos. This is were you can see what your friends activities are and what other people wrote on the friends wall. Again you can see here for example that your friend left a message on somebodies picture, but you can’t see what the message is. So this kind of notification is quite stupid to be honest. If i get a notification that somebody left a message on a pic, i want to have the option to view this message. Otherwise the notification doesn’t make any sense in the first place.
The right soft key will give you the option to write on your friends wall, or to poke her/him.
On the friends info page you see the same personal information as on your own info page. And the photo tab is the same too, so we don’t need to get into detail on this subject again.
The facebook app also supports direct messaging, and that’s what the envelope icon on the main navigation stands for. You can view each of your conversations with your friends seperatly. The next screenshot will show one example. As you can see the app will show your conversations quite nicely. I would have loved to see a similar approach for picture comments too, so you could actually view all comments of a picture.
Moving on to the last page on the main navigation, the phone page. Well this is self explanatory, you will find a list of your friends numbers.
Tapping on a contact will open the detail view which will provide different contact methods like calling, sms or direct message via facebook.
I think microsoft did a very good job with this facebook app, despite some of its flaws like the missing comment viewing for pictures. It has a nice UI with a fingerfriendly navigation, and the most important facebook features are all there. The good outweights the bad by far, so i can cleary recommend using this app to any user who is interested in using facebook on the go.
You can find the app on the official facebook for windows mobile download page.
[xrr rating=4.0/5]
