The Facebook iPhone app is one of the most widely used applications and there are a couple of quick updates coming to this iPhone app.
Joe Hewitt, the developer of the Facebook iPhone app confirmed on his Twitter account the impending release of Facebook 3.03 that will seek to fix a few bugs that exist on the current app.
He has also revealed plans to release Facebook 3.1. One of the most significant updates in this release shall be the availability of push notifications. Push notifications have been one of the most sought after features on the Facebook iPhone app. At present, iPhone users looking to incorporate push notifications on their Facebook app have to make use of other third party apps like Boxcar.
Push notifications should work great for a majority of the average users. However, as MG Seigler from TechCrunch notes, the iPhone is not currently equipped to handle multiple push notifications efficiently. He writes
"The Push Notification management system beyond a certain threshold is basically useless. That is to say, when you’re getting a large number of Push Notifications on your iPhone, it’s almost laughable how bad the built-in system is for trying to figure out what you just got notified about beyond the most recent message".
This could create problems for the power users who could have a tough time managing these notifications. Apparently, quite a few app developers including Loren Brichter, the developer of Tweetie iPhone app have chosen not to provide a push notification system on their apps owing to iPhone's problem in handling them.
While push notifications are indeed welcome on apps such as Facebook, it being enabled on all other apps that the iPhone user makes use of leads to an overkill. An ideal solution to this problem would be to disable the push notification setting by default so that the user can choose to enable notification from only those iPhone apps that they are concerned with.
Do you see push notification as a much needed update to the Facebook app or is it more of an unnecessary distration. Tell us your opinion in the commments.
[via TechCrunch]
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Yeah, but will it work on 3.0 firmware or is this yet another app that's going to go away if I try to upgrade it…?
LetMeKnow, available in the App store, does a great job handling multiple push notifications. Because you can receive notifications for weather, Twitter, Email, you can select an "interval."
The interval will pause anywhere between 10 seconds and 1 minute. This gives you a chance to read a notification and see if something important came through that should be accessed.
What I would like to see on the app store Facebook is the ability to play video. Kind of annoying to have to go to a desktop to watch one.
Not sure what it takes to make that possible, but like me, Im sure many will be glad when it arrives.
The reason you currently can't play videos on the Facebook iPhone app is because the videos are not in H.264 format.
So Facebook first needs to convert the videos in that format so we can play them.
Right now getting facebook updates thru email pushes. Works for me.
Wouldnt you just need the right codec?
Btw as much as i would like to see push, it would just drain my battery. People who play mobsters would love this but it would freeze up their phone with dozens of notifications.
But if your really desperate for push, why dont you just setup your phone # to facebook and receive text messages about notifications?