Tech Crunch’s Jason Kincaid wrote that the new application brings a slew of new features, making it what may be the most useful app on the App Store (be sure to read this post) for our full review. Among the additions are Events, which have frustratingly been omitted from previous versions. Now you’ll be able to look up where your Events are, and you can also respond to them and see which of your friends are attending (for anyone who has ever had to boot up the web version of the site just to look up an Event address, this is a big deal). You can also post video directly to the site if you have an iPhone 3GS — a feature that will likely see the number of videos on Facebook increase dramatically.

Smaller changes include a News Feed that more closely reflects the feed you’ll find on the main Facebook site, as well as the ability to “Like” items your friends have created.

One feature that users will be missing is Push Notifications, which we suspect will be rolled out in version 3.1, which Hewitt is already working on. There will also be support for landscape mode in the upcoming release, and we may also see support for the ability to watch Facebook videos from the phone (right now you can only upload them).

It’s worth noting that the 11 day wait since Facebook originally submitted the application was enough to raise Hewitt’s ire (and justifiably so), leading him to condemn the App Store approval process and call for its removal entirely. I couldn’t agree with him more.

You can download it now here. The store currently shows that the app is version 2.5, but if you click the Download button anyway you’ll get the new version.

“The first notable feature depicted in the new shots is the Facebook integration. The images show the ability to create a new playlist and then share it on Facebook,” Epstein reports. “The Facebook entry that subsequently appears on the user’s FB wall will include an iTunes link, presumably pointing to the shared playlist found on an iTunes page.”

Epstein reports, “Up next… How about some third-party device support?”

Full article, with the screenshots, here.

Facebook for iPhone version 3.0 will hopefully soon be made available through the iTunes App Store, but lead engineer Joe Hewitt has apparently already graced the team over at Appadvice with an early look.

Check out their review for more details, but here’s the gist:

- A new home screen (see first screenshot above) which will offer the ability to customize i.e. add boxes to the default start screen

- A better ‘News feed’: much more complete overview of status updates from your friends, but still lacking the ability to hide/unhide them from inside the app

- Videos (as expected): uploading video supposedly works like a charm, but you still can’t watch Facebook videos unless they’re actually hosted on YouTube (and likely other video hosting platforms as well) and simply played from inside the app

- Events (as expected): includes the ability to RSVP, but you can’t visit the complete event wall, which is unfortunate

- Pages: you can search for, view and interact with pages using Facebook for iPhone 3.0

- Photos: you can create new photo albums, upload photos to any album, zoom into photos and change your profile picture

- Communication: you can quickly or call people straight from the Friends page

- Improved ‘liking’ feature

- Notes, including the ability to edit them

- Notifications: much better, link directly to comments which you can respond to

- Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit the app or are interrupted by a phone call

Here’s to hoping for a quick green light from Apple.

(Via @Appadvice)

As one of the most popular applications on Apple’s popular iPhone platform, a lot of users are eagerly awaiting the next version of the app. And that wait is almost over.

“The app is pretty much done – we’re just working on translating it into a bunch of languages,” Facebook developer Joe Hewitt wrote tonight on Twitter.

That means that shortly, we’ll have access to the much-improved app which is scheduled to have features such as a News Feed that is more like the one on Facebook’s site, the ability to “like” items and a new customizable home screen. More importantly, it will also have video support for the iPhone 3GS, something which Hewitt threw-in at the last second, unexpectedly. And perhaps best of all, the app will have the ability to manage events, finally.

But don’t get too worked up just yet. We asked Hewitt if “pretty much done” meant next week perhaps. His response: “Can’t be sure – translating could take a while. I’ve been avoiding predicting an actual release date“. And of course even when the app is done, Facebook still has to submit it for approval in the App Store, and as we all know, that can be a crapshoot. We could see it next week, we could see it 6 months from now. Though, Apple does seem to do a pretty good job pushing important apps like this one through quickly. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Facebook is also finally working on an Android app. That should drop any day now.

From: TechCrunch.com