Facebook speaks out on the big app rebuild
We posted about the Facebook app update the other day, and if you haven't updated your app yet, you really should. The app is a prime example of why native development is almost always better than trying to do things with cross-platform web connections, and why it's so important, even for an online service like Facebook, to make sure an app performs well on a given platform. If you're interested in reading more about the process, Facebook has posted a substantial article over on its own Facebook page, walking through why this change was made and exactly how it was done.
It's very interesting to read behind the technical scenes of how this update was created. The app essentially works in the same way that the previous version does, but it was built from the ground up in iOS' native Objective-C. The changes were all core to the process of running the app rather than UI developments, and if you have any development experience, it's wild to see the giant Facebook deal with the same issues that other iOS developers face.
Of course, the drawback for all of this is that while the original HTML 5 app was relatively easy to update, this new app requires a little more code tweaking to change even basic things in the app. Facebook has done its best to build things as modular as possible (the new app even uses some of the code from the standalone Facebook Messenger app), but going forward, a more solid foundation may mean we have to wait longer for changes.
