Fackebook.app is a great app on iPhone - just like a elite community inside a great community
Last night, I notice an update 3.1 to 3.1.1 - a very minor jump, looks like a bug fixing release. However, I see many new features enabled!
Push notification
I am not sure it was working or not, but now, I see a specific Preferences page with various settings
Facebook account sync with Address book in the phone
Before this update, I like to use an application on Mac OS X called AddressBookSync
AddressBookSync is a free Mac OS X application to download profile pictures and other Facebook data to Address Book cards. This is a handy tool to keep your contacts' pictures updated if you have numerous Facebook friends in your Mac OS X Address Book.
If your phone supports synchronization with Address Book your contacts' profile pictures show up when they call you. AddressBookSync will also attempt to synchronize birthday (nice for iCal b-day calendar) and current location information to Address Book.
AddressBookSync supports the automatic matching of many common short/alternate first names between Facebook and Address Book (i.e. Michael and Mike, William and Bill, Jessica and Jess). AddressBookSync also supports the manual matching of any Facebook/Address Book pair, as well as the ability to add a new contact to Address Book from Facebook data.
AddressBookSync does not and will not support the synchronization of phone numbers or email addresses as Facebook does not allow this by their Terms of Service.
What it does is merging the address book in Facebook web with local Address Book. Recent 1.4 update allows me to merge the Facebook profile page link into Address Book. What is lacking is directly import phone/email/address information. I seriously doubt Facebook would allow any third party to do that.
Since Facebook.app is official, I want to know whether this princess gets privilege!
The answer is kindly NO.
A new link is introduced. Instead of using a full http URL, fb://profile/[xxxxxx] is added to each account as their webpage.
You can see the different from above. He was my roommate in Fudan and I know his Facebook account. Last 1.4 sync, I added an item called Facebook to Address Book. If I click it on iPhone, Mobile Safari will open and link me to his Facebook page (I need to login to access full info). Now, with the new fb:// item, I click it and his page is open inside Facebook.app. It is very convenient and no need for login hassle (Facebook.app stores my login info).
A very thoughtful upgrade!
When I visit the following one
I find he also gets a fb:// link. I have several email communication with him, whose email address automatically saved. But I don't know his Facebook account. The new upgrade in Facebook.app pulls their information from web by name matching and automatically append to my Address Book. Very nice! Although, I do notice one mis-matched person, which might be caused by the same English spelling of different Chinese names. This upgrade will not create a new account in Address Book, which is in your web Facebook. One confusion I have is that I thought Apple does NOT allow any writing operation to the Address Book in iPhone via third party application. But, this Facebook.app is definitely adding things. Is there some kind deal between Apple and Facebook ...
Anyway, it is a must-have upgrade to your existing Facebook.app. Do IT :-)
Leave a Reply