Don't hold your breath for a Facebook iPad app

While many of us (including me) are clamoring for an official iPad Facebook app, Mark Zuckerberg pretty much dashed any hopes for one at today's Facebook Mobile Event. When asked why there wasn't an official iPad app yet, Zuckerberg replied, "The iPad isn't mobile." Uh, what?

He apparently later back tracked and said that while he loves working with Apple, the iPad isn't as mobile as a phone. Erick Tensing, Facebook's head of Mobile Products, then explained that the explosion of tablets isn't going to be about the iPad alone and there would be many offerings from vendors running Android OS. That leads Facebook to believe that committing limited resources to one tablet just doesn't make sense.

What you're gonna see, according to TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid, is a web-based mobile app version of Facebook that targets tablets across the board. All I'm asking now is that they hurry it up, besides some feature loss while viewing Facebook on an iPad, the entire site locked iPad owners out of zooming and scaling a few weeks back.

Facebook released an updated version of its app for iPhone and iPod touch earlier today.

[via TechCrunch]

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/03/facebook-ipad/

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While many of us (including me) are clamoring for an official iPad Facebook app, Mark Zuckerberg pretty much dashed any hopes for one at...

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Sara

The iPad isn't mobile... Well I thought the kid was smart but I was wrong. He is stupid....

November 04 2010 at 6:45 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

It's Eric tseng. Not erick tensing.

November 04 2010 at 4:38 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bily

You may run Facebook iPhone app on iPad natively without jailbreak. Check out http://bit.ly/8YmtLF

November 04 2010 at 12:56 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Cyril

For people looking for a great Facebook app for their iPad, Friendly just released a FREE/LITE version of its popular app: http://bit.ly/diXdHJ

November 03 2010 at 10:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Johnny Thrash

Facebook is not THAT important anyway.

November 03 2010 at 10:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

David Schloss

I'd just rather have an updated Facebook. Still has the worst, most confusing UI of any major site I've ever seen.

November 03 2010 at 7:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jason

Zuckerberg didn't say they WEREN'T working on an iPad app, did he? I thought he only said that the iPad isn't a mobile device and therefore isn't part of their mobile development strategy. That makes sense. Unless I missed something, they may or may not have an iPad app coming, but he wasn't going to talk about it at an event focused on their mobile strategy.

November 03 2010 at 7:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

John.B

So rather than optimizing for the iPad experience today, they'd rather wait and implement a least-common-denominator approach for a range of tablets including all the Android models that don't yet exists. Bah! For a bunch of Hahvahd types, they sure lack common sense (not to mention artistic talent in UI design)....

BTW, I like how they claim to have limited resources! LOL!

November 03 2010 at 7:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Martin

I think if the iPad was not segmented into WiFi only and WiFi/3G models, his statement would have been different. The iPhone and other mobile phones are truly mobile, and have all the necessary components for the platform: always connected, with GPS and a camera for stills or video.

November 03 2010 at 6:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

KiwiBri

who cares about farcebook. All they want to do is datamine your data and snoop on you. Its great for companies but a waste of time in general.

November 03 2010 at 6:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to KiwiBri's comment

Jason

Yet, despite that, people enjoy connecting with friends and sharing photos/video/events/etc.

(Frankly, I don't think most people care about the data mining, myself included.)

November 03 2010 at 7:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

hedbluntincharge

holy crap a comment that makes sense! glad im not the only person who sees farcebook for what it is, an atrocious waste of time run by narcissistic tools FOR narcissistic tools.

November 03 2010 at 7:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply