The Facebook [iTunes link] application for the iPhone has just been updated to version 2 (although you may see it listed as version 1.1 in the store), and the new version number brings some stellar features! In this release, the Facebook team has completely revamped the user interface and brought the client up to parity with the mobile Facebook app for Blackberry (really surpassed it, if you ask me). Some of the new features are:

• Facebook Chat (OK, not new, but seems to be working much better now)
  
• Address book lookup
• New, easier to use interface, including notifications and the full news feed
  
• WritePhoto post on friends' walls and view their full profiles
• Photo tags (holding your finger down on the photo will show them)
• People search, friend requests and your full inbox/inbox search
• Photo uploading is faster
• You can now upload photos from your library stored on the iPhone

In addition to all those changes, there are also "dozens of bug fixes that improve stability" and speed -- especially for users with a large number of friends. Now that's something every iPhone-owning Facebook user will like!

You can download this new version of FaceBook.app for iPhone from the iTunes App Store today. Be sure to check out the changes in the user interface by looking at our gallery of screenshots.



Thanks for the tip, Jason!

Yahoo has released a preview of an iPhone client (iTunes link) for their oneConnect service. Basically, it integrates your Yahoo and iPhone address books with a variety of social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, etc. (see here for the full list). You're then able to use Yahoo Messenger or SMS to communicate with contacts, or see their status updates, etc. from the various services.

The idea behind oneConnect is to aggregate your different social networking sites into one interface so you don't have to keep switching between, say, Twitterrific and the Facebook application to keep on top of what's going on with your various friends. It looks like it could definitely be handy if you have friends spread across different networks.

[via MacNN]

Facebook always seems to be on the forefront of iPhone development. They were one of the first social networking websites to have a good web application specifically designed for iPhone, and now they are one of the first big-name social networking sites to have a decent native application on the iPhone.

The native application looks very similar to the web-based version, but with a few minor "upgrades." You get photo taking/uploading support, iPhone-esqe photo galleries, and Facebook chat. Facebook chat really works wonders, especially if you have been using the web-only client.

The Facebook iPhone/iPod touch application is available right now for free from the AppStore.

Adium has a sweet new beta version available this morning. If you don't automatically see 1.3b2 when you check for updates, then make sure you've enabled "Update to beta versions when available" under the General tab in the Preference pane.

Several new features have been added, including:

• Enhanced psychic abilities -- it opens a chat window as soon as a contact begins typing a message

• Filtered search in the Contact list

• Apple Address Book integration (access under Advanced tab in Preferences)

• Integration with Facebook chat (enable in the Accounts tab under Preferences)

• The latest Growl and libpurple updates

• Additional information (such as "Last Seen" and Apple Address Book notes) added to the Contact Inspector

Fixed issues include the linkification of enclosed URLs, a memory inefficiency, and a pesky tendency for closed chats to suddenly reappear. All told, there are more than 150 improvements and enhancements to Adium, one of the hardest working chat apps out there.

Adium, the tasty multi-client Mac chat app, is about to get even tastier: developer Evan Schoenberg announced today on the Adium blog that he's adding Facebook Chat to the ridiculously long list of instant messaging protocols already supported by the app. He even included a screenshot of the new protocol in action, seen on the right.

No word on when the new release will be available, unfortunately, but you can keep track at the Adium blog.

Thanks, Chris!

If you're a social-network-junkie (and most of us here at TUAW are to a certain extent), keeping all the services up to date has always been a bit of a chore. Thankfully, MoodBlast (written by our very own Brett Terpstra) arrived on the scene to cure our service-update blues, making life super simple when it came to letting people know exactly what we're doing.

One of the most frequently-requested features has been Pownce integration -- something that's not been possible due to Pownce's lack of a full API allowing 3rd-party applications to post to the service. Pownce has since released a new version of the API with posting, and Brett has been quick to add the service to MoodBlast with version 3.0.7.1, released today. Simply enter your Pownce details into MoodBlast, check the Pownce box to ensure you're posting to it, and click 'Blast' as you normally would.

MoodBlast remains donationware, and is available to download now.

Tonight, Apple released two new iPhone commercials in the standard iPhone-esqe style -- Facebook and Cars. In these two commercials, Apple expounds on features that have already been introduced in older commercials. This is the first time that Apple has shown a web application on the iPhone in a commercial. Apple announces in the commercial, "If you love Facebook so much that you check it all the time on your computer, just think how great it would be to check it every time... you're, well, nowhere near your computer."

Oddly enough, with the two new iPhone commercials, there is no mention of the new 16GB model that was just released today.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

If you're on Facebook, you're likely aware of the plentiful Apple-related groups you can join (as if discussions in the comments here at TUAW and other sites weren't enough). Of course, there's more recently been the ability to add 'Applications' to your Facebook Profile, and that's where Mac Lover comes in. File it under 'wacky' or 'for the fanboys' if you will, Mac Lover (Facebook login & account required) allows you to show your geek pride and show off your Apple kit collection directly within your Facebook profile - and allows you to organize it with Apple style too.

Featuring some slick and snazzy Apple-esque effects, you simply build up an iWant and iHave list and then save it to add it to your Profile. There's also a forthcoming feature to 'Give your friend a Mac' (and offer contacts an electronic 'glass of ice water to people in hell' if you will) to send your friends the iMac you've always wanted to give them, if not been able to afford. Whilst there's a good selection of Apple products to add (including Newtons, Software, Peripherals and truly old-skool Macs) the latest iPods are sadly missing in action for now.

PhotoBook is a very Mac-like photo browser for the Facebook social-networking site. It allows you to view friends' albums on a single page with a nice iPhoto-like resizer at the bottom. It also offers live searching/filtering as you type and slideshows with transitions. Speaking of iPhoto it includes one-click importing of any photo or entire album. If you find yourself viewing Facebook photos a lot, this looks like a great way to do it.

PhotoBook is a free download from Caffeinated Cocoa.

[via MacTips]

If you're looking for the 'next thing' with which to boost your Facebook ninja status, Subsume just might be it. Right now it's an alpha so it's a little rough around the edges, but it primarily displays updates from your Facebook friends with Growl, a TUAW favorite that allows applications to display useful popup alerts when something happens (your song changes in iTunes, new email arrives, a buddy goes offline, etc.). Setting up Subsume is easy, just like with any other app that hooks into Facebook; you're taken to a Facebook login that prompts you for your credentials (if you aren't logged in already), then Facebook asks you to authorize Subsume to display your info. At an interval that Subsume's site doesn't describe yet (remember: it's an alpha folks), the app will check your Facebook account for any status updates from your friends, then display them in Growl's handy, unobtrusive update alerts. For the Facebook obsessed, this could turn out to be a great app that keeps you on top of what's going on without having to keep some kind of a window always open and taking up space.

Subsume is provided as free for now at subsume.info. I should note that the developer, Jacob Jay, developers one of my favorite picture sharing utilities: PictureSync, which we've mentioned on TUAW a few times before.

Attention all ye Facebook and iPhoto users: you may feel free to begin using iPhoto '08, now that Facebook has updated their Facebook Exporter plug-in. We first found this plug-in back in March, and while I'm definitely not the most active Facebook user or photo uploader, I don't think anything else is new. However, I just noticed a really cool feature that allows you to click anywhere on an image in the well on the right to create an outlining box around it, allowing you to name or tag whatever you're highlighting.

Facebook Exporter for iPhoto is provided for free by Facebook.

Attention all ye users of Adium, Skype, iChat, Twitter, Facebook and Jaiku - Brett Terpstra has struck again with MoodSwing, his excellent utility for updating your status across all these apps and services. Why do I call it a utility instead of just a Quicksilver action, you ask? Because Brett is now providing both the original action and a new full-blown menubar app - at the request of TUAW readers - called MoodBlast. Both now live on the same download page at Brett's Circle Six Design blog, and they both allow you to update your status across all the aforementioned services at once. While MoodSwing is an action you set-and-forget to work with Quicksilver (though you can reconfigure later), an advantage of the MoodBlast menubar app is that you're presented with the UI you see above every time you activate it, with any services you used previously already selected for updating. The other advantage of the MoodBlast app, of course, is that you don't need Quicksilver in order to minimize the effort spent for online socialization.

As with his other excellent projects, Brett Terpstra provides MoodSwing and MoodBlast as donationware.

If it seems like it was only last week that Brett Terpstra introduced his side project MoodSwing, a clever script that allows users to change their status message across multiple apps with Quicksilver - well, it was. People loved it, so Brett quickly began updating, tweaking and adding a slew of new features and services that MoodSwing could manipulate. The script is now up to v4 with a dedicated page at Brett's Circle Six Design blog, listing out all the features and supported services:

• Supports Adium, iChat and Skype
  
• Supports Twitter, Jaiku and Facebook
  
• Automatic Qurling of long URLs
• Word Count
  
• Send current weather (international)
  
• Send current iTunes track
  
• Encryption of passwords stored in preferences
  
• Easy-to-edit defaults, can be overridden by command syntax

In a surprisingly short time, MoodSwing has become an incredibly powerful Quicksilver action that can simplify the process of letting your friends across many services know what you're up to. The action is pretty easy to set up and configure to your bidding, but be sure to check out the MoodSwing page for instructions to get the ball rolling. As with so many of Brett's other excellent offerings, MoodSwing is provided as donationware, so scroll down on Brett's Downloads page and show him some appreciation.

Tossing their hat into a quickly expanding ring, Facebook has launched a powerful portal designed specifically for the iPhone (http://iphone.facebook.com). Offering quick access to key Facebook areas and tools, the entire UI is built to mimic the increasingly popular iPod/iPhone 'slide right' approach whenever you drill down into portions of the site. While it seems very usable, even over EDGE, I am still a bit disappointed about some missing features. The ability to join a group, for example, is restricted to desktop computers; you can't join a group you saw some friends join on your iPhone.

Aside from those minor complaints though, this is a very impressive web app that I'm sure will have iPhone-toting Facebook junkies wasting spending even more time at the site.

[via Mashable]

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

As its name suggests, FacebookSync is a tiny freeware app from FSB Software that - wait for it - syncs your friends' info from Facebook to Mac OS X's Address Book. Upon running it, a window much like the one you see above will appear for every contact that either doesn't have an Address Book entry at all, or is missing information that could be pulled down from Facebook. It can even pull down images in case your Address Book contacts don't have those either, which is handy since apps like Mail, iChat, Growl + Gmail and Adium can use these pics to help identify these contacts.

Whilst trying this out, FacebookSync seems to work pretty well, though I admittedly don't spend much time on it and I only have a dozen or so friends. Still, it added the information I told it to (and for the record, I'm on 10.4.9 and have over 450 contacts in Address Book already), so I'll give it two thumbs up. Before running FacebookSync, however, I highly recommend you chose File > Backup Address Book in Address Book to create a clean, recent copy in case things go south. FacebookSync isn't likely to eat your cat or cause your Apple TV to implode, but having a Plan B is an absolute must when playing with software like this.

[via digg]