Facebook iPad app has been 'feature complete' for months

TechCrunch has a long piece on the ongoing saga of the missing-in-action Facebook app for the iPad. Developer Jeff Verkoeyen, who worked on the app, says Facebook's iPad app has been feature complete since May, but the company keeps pushing back the release. According to Verkoeyen, "The experience of working on this app was a large contribution to the reasons why I left Facebook, though that doesn't mean it wasn't a difficult decision." The developer has joined Facebook rival Google, but he says this move wasn't meant as a lashing-out at his former employer.

You may remember that Facebook's iPad app leaked in July, its code buried within the iPhone version of the app. That was an iteration of the "feature complete" version of the app, but for unknown reasons Facebook continues to push back its release. TechCrunch's sources claim this whole saga has come about due to a strained relationship between Apple and Facebook.

Facebook was originally supposed to be deeply integrated with Ping, Apple's own stab at social networking via iTunes, but talks between the companies reportedly broke down at the last minute. Facebook is also reportedly working on a huge HTML5 platform that some analysts suspect is intended to circumvent or compete with Apple's own App Store, but there's a wrinkle in that logic: TechCrunch's sources report that Apple and Facebook may actually be collaborating on that project.

After F8 it could be possible that Facebook is now looking to integrate announced Facebook features in its iPad app, but that is mere speculation.

TechCrunch believes that Facebook is holding back the iPad app as an attempted leverage in its negotiations with Apple. Meanwhile, while these supposed backroom negotiations continue interminably, iPad owners continue to have to put up with a subpar experience with Facebook on the iPad. In the immortal words of astronaut Alan Shepherd, "Why don't you fellows solve your little problems and light this candle."