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I was onboard until "The Facebook mobile app is absolutely awful – and hasn’t improved in years. A lot of these reasons are subtle like lack of support for the

by jpxxx 14y ago

I was onboard until "The Facebook mobile app is absolutely awful – and hasn’t improved in years. A lot of these reasons are subtle like lack of support for the Nitro JavaScript engine in native apps which wrap HTML content like Facebook’s (Apple doesn’t allow this)." Horseshit. The Facebook mobile app is absolutely awful because Facebook allows it to be absolutely awful. Look at all of the rock-solid, supremely pleasant, sync-and-serve social experiences on iOS and tell me exactly why Facebook is a special case. Dropped posts, stuttering scrolling, lost comments, photo upload glitches, punishing load times, punishing layout glitches, nonfunctional UI... none of this can be laid at Apple's feet. A magical ~JIT Javascript~ wand isn't going to solve any of this mess.

ashray 14y ago
Word. Facebook's iOS apps are really really poor. Even their performance in mobile Safari with the standard Facebook website is very bad. I really don't get why their performance on mobile safari is any different from safari on a desktop. It's just pathetic for an extremely profitable mega corp to ship such poor products.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
It's much better on Android, if you ignore the 20 second wait everytime you open the app or navigate around too much. The mobile webpage is nearly identical. Minus push notifications, but it renders instantaneously, scrolls great on my GNex, etc. I just have a Facebook icon Bookmark to Chrome for Android instead of the Facebook app installed (and my battery life improves!)
- darklajid 14y ago
  I don't know anything about iOS (or their native Facebook app). That said, I cannot believe that the Android app is better than anything else. It's .. sad. I wonder if this thing is build in some random two engineers 20% time and they usually work with iOS (or .. something else, but not Android) and really just do this task for the giggles. I use the website on my device, because the native app fails to provide a bunch of things anyway - and it's sooooo sloooow.. I know this reads like a rant and it probably is. In fact, I use FB in a limited way and even there the native client is lacking. It's - ignoring all emotions for a second - really subpar on every level in my book.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    Nah, I'm right there with you, but I'm given to understand, from my iOS-defensive-friends, that the iOS app is even worse. It has the slowness on the Android version with intermittent crashes.
qq66 14y ago
It's not really incompetence by Facebook either. Facebook is strategically distancing itself from iOS by making the iOS native application almost identical to the HTML5 application in user experience (look at the previous iOS app by Joe Hewitt -- it was much better -- they didn't degrade it for no reason). Seriously, I can't immediately tell the difference between using it on iOS or from within Mobile Safari. That way, they're protected when they get into a real pissing war with Apple -- if Apple pulls their app from the store for whatever reason, they have gotten their entire user base used to a Mobile Safari-quality experience.

by jpxxx 14y ago

ashray 14y ago

Word. Facebook's iOS apps are really really poor. Even their performance in mobile Safari with the standard Facebook website is very bad. I really don't get why their performance on mobile safari is any different from safari on a desktop. It's just pathetic for an extremely profitable mega corp to ship such poor products.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

It's much better on Android, if you ignore the 20 second wait everytime you open the app or navigate around too much. The mobile webpage is nearly identical. Minus push notifications, but it renders instantaneously, scrolls great on my GNex, etc. I just have a Facebook icon Bookmark to Chrome for Android instead of the Facebook app installed (and my battery life improves!)

darklajid 14y ago
I don't know anything about iOS (or their native Facebook app). That said, I cannot believe that the Android app is better than anything else. It's .. sad. I wonder if this thing is build in some random two engineers 20% time and they usually work with iOS (or .. something else, but not Android) and really just do this task for the giggles. I use the website on my device, because the native app fails to provide a bunch of things anyway - and it's sooooo sloooow.. I know this reads like a rant and it probably is. In fact, I use FB in a limited way and even there the native client is lacking. It's - ignoring all emotions for a second - really subpar on every level in my book.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Nah, I'm right there with you, but I'm given to understand, from my iOS-defensive-friends, that the iOS app is even worse. It has the slowness on the Android version with intermittent crashes.

qq66 14y ago

It's not really incompetence by Facebook either. Facebook is strategically distancing itself from iOS by making the iOS native application almost identical to the HTML5 application in user experience (look at the previous iOS app by Joe Hewitt -- it was much better -- they didn't degrade it for no reason). Seriously, I can't immediately tell the difference between using it on iOS or from within Mobile Safari. That way, they're protected when they get into a real pissing war with Apple -- if Apple pulls their app from the store for whatever reason, they have gotten their entire user base used to a Mobile Safari-quality experience.