Facebook Plans to Speed Up Its iPhone App

Nick Bilton:

In fact, I’d venture to say that Facebook’s iPhone application is slower than almost any of the other 499,999 apps available for the iPhone. Thankfully that’s all going to change next month. According to two Facebook engineers who asked not be named because they are not authorized to speak about unreleased products, Facebook has completely rebuilt its iOS application to optimize for one thing: speed.

Here’s how:

One of the Facebook engineers said the new application has been built primarily using Objective-C, the programming language used to build applications for iOS. Many of the components of the current version of the Facebook app are built using HTML5, the Web-based markup language.

Yours truly, a month ago, regarding Facebook’s new camera app:

I think Zuckerberg saw that for mobile, the HTML/CSS/JavaScript web is not enough. Native apps are essential, thus the talent acquisitions of superstar outfits like Sofa and Push Pop Press. I bet Facebook has more native mobile apps on the way.

★ Thursday, 28 June 2012