Facebook has been adamant about not developing a native iPad App and would instead refer users to a HTMl5 driven website. The secret is out of the bag as the latest version of Facebook’s iPhone App contains a heavily iPad optimized interface.
Facebook App For iPad
Despite Facebook’s claims about not developing a native iPad App and instead wanting developers to rise to the task, we now have the tablet App iOS users have been waiting for. But, you can’t actually download it without performing a few tweaks to the iPhone App.
The entire iPad interface is contained within the iPhone Facebook App. To actually enable the lush iPad UI, you’ll have to jailbreak your iPad. Switching from the iPhone optimized UI to the new iPad only UI requires changing a line in the App’s Info.plist file. You can use a file browser on the iPad or your computer but you’ll need to change the 1 to a 2 in the UIDeviceFamily section and voila! You now have the semi-official Facebook for iPad App!
MG Seigler from Techrunch spent some hands on time with the App and posted a gallery of screenshots:
“In particular, the navigation system is great. Unlike the iPhone app — which even its creator is complaining about now as being stale — the Facebook iPad app uses a left-side menu system that can be accessed by the touch of a button or the flick of the iPad screen. The app also makes great use of the pop-overs (overlay menus) found in other iPad apps. When you flip the iPad horizontally, the list of your online friends appears, and you can chat with them as you do other things on Facebook. The photo-viewer aspect looks great — similar to the iPad’s own native Photos app. Places exists with a nice big map to show you all your friends around you.”
If this isn’t the shipping Facebook iPad App then I don’t know what is.
