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5 reasons to update Facebook for iOS

James Thornton

James Thornton

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A new version of Facebook for iOS has been released that promises to be twice as fast as the previous version. Facebook 5.0 has been completely rewritten to make it quicker to load and also includes some key functionality changes to make it smarter and more enjoyable to use.

Here are the most important changes that make this an essential update:

Quicker to launch

The first thing you’ll notice is that Facebook 5.0 for iOS is much quicker to start up than the previous version. In fact, Facebook claims that the latest version loads twice as fast as the previous version.

Smoother scrolling

The whole Facebook app has been rebuilt in Apple’s native Objective-C rather than HTML5, and the main benefit of this is that scrolling is now much smoother. Since news feed content is now pre-cached it means you won’t have to wait ages for posts to appear as you slide down the news feed.

Photos are easier to browse

Significant improvements have been made to the way photos are displayed and managed in Facebook 5.0 for iOS. Not only do pictures load faster, but you can now swipe left and right through the photos in an album directly from the news feed without having to open it. Closing photos can now be done by coolly swiping down on the image.

Uploading photos through the app has got faster too, and you now have the option of retaking a picture if you don’t like what you’ve taken.

Improved liking

Liking stuff in the new Facebook app is much slicker than it was before. Now as soon as you like something, it appears instantly next to the post or photo. The pop-up that appears when you view likes is also much neater than it was before, as it doesn’t mask the content.

Better news feed

One of the biggest improvements to the Facebook app has been to the news feed. Not only is scrolling faster but you can now access the tabs on the left hand side just by sliding the news feed to the right.

The news feed also has a new feature where you can pull the top to see extra news. This means that whenever your feed is updated you don’t have to reload the entire feed to see what’s new – it will automatically update at the top of the news feed.

James Thornton

James Thornton

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