Facebook revamps Android and iPhone, talks iPad

Facebook today updated its Android and iPhone apps alike to add newer features, including ones just added today. Both now support the Groups feature from the website to sort and look at different categories. Places has also been improved and now lets users do more with the check-in, such as adding a photo during the check-in as well as tagging friends afterwards.

Android's updates are also playing catch-up, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said. The social network had hired an outside firm to help it close in on the iPhone app's features, but the contractor had been bought up by Google late into the process, he said. Places is completely new to Android and should help accelerate its adoption.

Both app updates should be available today.

Zuckerberg also addressed the longstanding question of a native iPad app by rejecting the idea in the near term. The "iPad isn't mobile," he told the media. Mobile Product Manager Erick Tseng followed up and added that Apple's tablet was part of a "new class of devices" and that Facebook's challenge was to scale its experience upwards without locking into a particular platform. The website was the current solution.

"iPad's not mobile. It's a computer," Zuckerberg said to a surprised reaction in the audience, only qualifying himself later. "I don't mean to be rude to Apple. iPad just isn't mobile in the same way [an iPhone] is."

By Electronista Staff

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