Android owners now have some reason to cheer. Maybe not a `jump-up-in-the-air’ cheer but a ‘wide-grin’ cheer. Facebook has released v 1.6 for its Android clients with improved News Feed, Pages Support and, yes, Video upload!. The downside is that most of the features added to Android are those which are already present for iOS Facebook app.
Dubbing the development not huge but certainly an improvement, Xydo.com explains, “The News Feed has been improved in the sense that it will load more type of posts and open the posts natively in the app.”
As far as the Pages Support is concerned, the report says, “You may now click on a page that appears in your news feed and browse the page within the app. However, search features for Pages is still missing.
Commenting on the major feature addition, the report says, “We can now (finally) upload videos taken from our devices directly to Facebook while staying in the app.”
(Image credit : redmondpie.com)
On the improved app, Pallab De of Techie Buzz had an intriguing query, “Interestingly enough, the new Facebook app demands permission to send SMS. I couldn’t find any option to send an SMS from the app itself, so I have no clue as to why the app insists on this permission.”
De comments that there are still a lot of features missing from Facebook’s mobile application. “Popular features such as ‘comment likes’ and ‘name-tagging’ which were released months ago, are yet to make their way to the mobile app,’ he says.
A redmondpie report says, “Facebook for Android’s popularity has soared over the last month, growing at an even faster pace than the iOS client, despite the lack of functionality, from just over 26 million a month ago to nearly 30 million now. On the other hand, the share of users who use the app daily has steadily declined.”
The redmondpie report also offers a bit of a relevant history, “For a long time, iOS was the only mobile platform with its dedicated Facebook App, until the first version of Facebook for Android made its way to the market in September 2009. At the time, there wasn’t much to see, aside from a new feed and posting features. Less than one year later, however, Facebook for Android was completely overhauled, making the Android App look a wee bit similar to its iOS counterpart, but lacked tons of features, and still does. Over the last year, the Android client has been updated to add several new features, such as Facebook Chat support.”
Concluding, the report rues, “Core features like Photo Tagging, however, are still lacking.”
You can download Facebook for Android 1.6 from the Market.