Facebook BlackBerry app upgrade available - and I love it

All Facebook users who also carry a BlackBerry must rejoice and should try out version 1.6.0.17 that is out now and is available to download. Simply go to the existing Facebook application and select to upgrade. If you don’t have the app on your BlackBerry phone already, you can download it from here. I have been using the Facebook app on my BlackBerry for a while now but it always lacked many features and the wap site m.facebook.com was always better. I’ve also been trying some third party tools like shozu and snaptu for Facebook access but none of them have been as simple, comprehensive and convenient as the wap site. This time, the development team has done the job very well and has given a feature boost to the application and now I don’t use the wap site anymore.

The new features include:

• A new and improved home screen that shows status updates.
• You can comment on these statuses
• A new “View Highlights” screen that shows photos posted by users, status updates, wall posts, photo comments, relationship status changes, phone number changes and a bundle of other updates.
• Capability of commenting from the above mentioned “View Highlights” screen.
• An improved Notification page

Photo gallery — View Highlights

• An improved Friend’s list that allows, not only to poke and message friends, but lets you call them, view their profile.
• The user profile screen that lets you view updates from a friend and yes, my favorite, browse and view the albums and photos
• An amazing album and photo gallery? Watching photos from Facebook friends’ albums is a charm on this app. Did I mention that already?
• Photo gallery allows you to browse and scroll through the photos, zoom into the photos and set photos as the BB home screen.

View Profile —– Upload and Tag Photos

All existing features including poke, message, write on wall, invite friends, tag and upload photos etc are also there and are complemented by the new features and they complement the new features too.

The app also allows you to sync your Facebook and Blackberry contacts. You can connect Facebook profiles with existin entries on your Blackberry contacts, you can request phone numbers of Facebook friends and you can also search for people in your Blakcberry contacts on Facebook and add them up.

Following wizard came up on my web-based Facebook when I logged in just after installing the new Facebook app on my Blackberry.

You can watch the usage video posted below to get an idea of the new feature’s working.

Note, I carry a non-wifi Blackberry, so the application looks a bit slow in the video.

Summary
Overall, the application is a hit. I don’t find many drawbacks in the app.

The good:

• View albums: Its smooth, shows album name, preview photo and number of photos in it. Nice side-wise scrolling transitions.
• View photos: Amazing full screen photo viewing with photo title/info and swapping between photos in an album is a charm. Side wise scrolling thumbnails make it look so good.
• View profiles: A new feature with great options like view photos, poke, message and profile activity of the user.
• Great contact sync: Allows you to sync your Facebook contacts with Blackberry contacts and vise-versa.
• Request phone number: You can request a Facebook user’s phone number and can sync it with the phone so that you can use it for calling. I got to talk to a few very old friends just because of this feature.

The Bad

• The earlier Facebook notification system worked great with the Blackberry holster. (Facebook notification rings, you pull out the phone and notification is right on the screen). Things are not that good with this version. Notification system doesn’t work. Doesn’t work at all. But this is a very small glitch and I’m sure things will be fixed in next version.
• Facebook experience on Blackberry is still behind Facbook experience on an iPhone.