Facebook's old interface on the left versus the new one on the right. Looks very similar, doesn't it?
Facebook has rewritten its iOS app from scratch, though most of the user-facing changes are subtle. The company announced the update as part of a major media push on Thursday, with the main headlining feature apparently being that the app actually works now. The 5.0 version of the app opens and operates significantly faster on the iPhone and iPad than it did in its previous iterations, which Facebook touts as evidence that it's retooling the way it thinks so that it's a "mobile first" company.
Facebook's previous app—particularly the version just before this, 4.1.1—did not have a good reputation. Ratings on the App Store hovered around the two-star mark, and on any given day, a search on either Facebook or Twitter would yield hundreds of complaints about the mobile app's slowness or bugginess. Notifications persisted way too long, and messages would often remain marked as "unread" no matter how many times you tried to read them. And sometimes the app would notify you of new activity on your wall, only to go to your wall and not be able to find new comments or "likes" until several refreshes later. You get the idea.
The new app, however, doesn't appear to have these issues. I went hands-on with Facebook 5.0 on both the iPhone and iPad, but this post will mostly focus on the iPhone version (largely because that's the version I use the most). Indeed, just as Facebook claims, the app loads very quickly compared to the last version, and tapping around on the interface is noticeably speedier. Some of the interface elements look a little different, but overall the functionality is mostly the same as what you're already used to. The left sidebar in particular—where you can choose between your news feed, your own profile, messages, and so on—looks the same, as does your general news feed aside from photos.
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