Facebook + iPhone = UltraCool

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1. Dan Birdwhistell
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 1:27 am

   Bragging about the size of your inbox again, mike?

2. Michael Arrington
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 1:29 am

   I rarely read facebook email. Hell, I rarely read email.

3. TechDumpster (living in First Life)
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 1:52 am

   Well at least you followed up on your previous comment stating that Facebook and iPhone are the center of your universe.

4. Brendan Jarvis
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 1:53 am

   it certainly doesn’t like IE7

5. Michael Arrington
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 1:54 am

   what’s IE7?

6. Facebook!
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 2:02 am

   this is awesome. do you think they will open source this as well? sure would help with those of us looking to copy them.

   http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....de-leaked/

7. Sam Daams
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 2:02 am

   That would be Internet ExploDer 7 Mike

   I don’t agree that this is not much to look at in a regular browser though. Resize your Firefox windown down to a smallish size and click through it. This is in my opinion a bit of a watershed moment when you see that in action. It’s not only the best mobile version of a site for an iphone, but quite possibly the best mobile version of any site anywhere out there. This will be the kind of thing that web developers strive for in the years to come.

   What do you think; did they get Apple to help them out to give it that ‘Apple feel’ for the between page effect?

8. Michael Arrington
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 2:06 am

   I don’t know if they had help from Apple, but facebook has Joe Hewitt, who’s largely considered the most adept iPhone Safari developer out there.

   http://www.joehewitt.com/iui/

9. clist
   

   August 15th, 2007 at 2:16 am

   The screenshot looks very cool and makes me want to buy an iPhone.
   hmm.. do I use facebook that much?

10. Justin
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 2:46 am

    This time I have to disagree. The interaction design is totally un-imaginative and plain terrible. Just because this is an iphone interface does not result in the only result of a click is to “slide interface left”.

    Clicking a tab should result in the tab and its respective content appearing in situ. the metaphor is lost by sliding the interface as a resutl of absolutely every click. It doesn’t work and its just plain wrong.

    Do it because you shuold, not just because you can.

11. Mike
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 2:59 am

    I thought the whole point of the iphone is that you could surf the ‘real’ web with it? Many sites are going down this route and it strikes me as a bad idea - let’s have good quality XHTML and perhaps a style sheet for mobile devices…

12. Sam Daams
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:19 am

    Justing: Maybe the clicks on the sub tabs shouldn’t have that sliding effect, but I don’t see what the problem is with using it instead of a top to bottom load effect? As you say “clicking a tab should result in the tab and its respective content appearing” and that’s exactly what happens.

    Mike (11). Agree with you there for the long run. But unfortunately ‘real’ sites pages are getting bigger size wise in order to still keep up in today’s world. Although you could use xhtml and a stylesheet to serve that same content in a different format, the REAL problem is the size of pages and time/cost for downloading them. Hence a somewhat drummed down size makes sense at present. Hopefully the advances in speed and reductions in cost for mobile browsing will make this a non-issue going forward but in today’s market you wouldn’t want to be caught snoozing while you wait for that to happen….

13. Animal Forums
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:20 am

    Man I wish I had 1300$ a year for a phone… haha

14. Mario Ruiz
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:23 am

    Hi Michael,

    The winning combination is going to be iPhone and Skype. Flat rate for all your calls national and international.

    I like Facebook and iPhone. These is like candy for me.

    Mario Ruiz
    http://www.oursheet.com

15. Anon
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:35 am

    How does a site like iphone.facebook.com, specifically targeted at the iphone help a move towards device independence. Why differentiate between the iphone and the rest of the web endabled device world…
    Also they’ve essentially just crammed the site into the iUI framework when they could have done something a bit more clever like loading the tabs dynamically without sliding around the place - comes across as an odd behaviour.
    I like it really - just don’t understand the approach, other than from a marketing point of view….

16. Scott Taylor
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:48 am

    Looks good, can’t wait to the UK release of them. The reason I have been holding off getting a new blackberry/mobile.

    Cheers,
    Scott

17. Jazza
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:53 am

    I liked the look at it, so tried it on my UK T-Mobile Vario 2, and was told it was blocked for adult content!!! m.facebook.com works though.

18. Robert MacEwan
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:55 am

    @Michael, a dead horse that just will not go away

19. Master William
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 3:58 am

    Not sure about the negativity. This is an astounding implementation. Beautiful, functional and distinctly Facebook

20. jason
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 4:23 am

    grab a friend with a Helio Ocean and check out the myspace app. The iPhone’s facebook page is very similar to the myspace design.

21. Mike
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 4:42 am

    @ Sam (12) - good point, but the correct use of XHTML and CSS should stop pages being unnecessarily large. I am speaking as a developer. At least Anon (15) agrees with me I’m concerned that if we have one implementation for iPhone we should have another for Blackberry … device independent sites should stop us reverting to the bad old days where we had to develop for IE/Netscape/IE Mac…

22. Mike
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 4:45 am

    Related article - http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/18.....-websites/

23. Tom
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 4:51 am

    I would be very surprised if this WASN’T Joe Hewitt’s work. It does, in fact, use some form of iUI (check the source) which Joe Hewitt created just before his company was bought by Facebook.

    If you have an Xbox with XBMC, check out this iPhone XBMC remote control I’ve been working on…
    http://tlrobinson.net/projects/xbmciphone/

24. Spiel
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 5:15 am

    [sarcasm] WOW, this is so cool. iPhone can really do that?

    First of all, as if wasting 20 minutes on your home/work computer on Facebook isn’t sufficeient, now you can waste all your time on iPhone & Facebook. Go for it!

    Second of all, everyone speaks of Skype + iPhone as if it’s “the” technology breakthrough”. Hummm, have you seen a Nokia N80/N95 with Gizmo? How about with Fring? Been done…iPhone will be at least 2 years behind on that.

25. Anon
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:17 am

    Mike (21) Completely agree, this is, I believe, more of a marketing move than anything - or at least driven by marketing decisions - not user experience. If you have iphone.fb.com why not nokiaN95.fb.com or nintendoDSlite.fb.com etc etc - you get the idea… What i think would have been really great is some smart, semantic, XHTML, marked up with css according to appropriate media type(s) plus more of a progressive enhancemet approach to the impelentation of the pages - i.e the iphone site doesn’t work if you have javascript disabled…
    Why not take an approach that can tick the boxes for a broad spectrum of web enabled devices…

26. Jeremiah Owyang
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:19 am

    It’s interesting as these are both considered walled gardens.

27. Master William
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:26 am

    Nothing inherently wrong with a walled garden Jeremiah.

28. Andy Fox
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:47 am

    wow, a post that combines two things i cant stand:
    
    Facebook:
    http://misanthropytoday.wordpr.....-facebook/

    And The iPhone:
    http://misanthropytoday.wordpr.....-like-you/

29. josef
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 7:09 am

    wish they’d figure out a good cookie system, as even having to enter my password everytime is even more annoying on an iphone.

30. BILLGATES
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 7:25 am

    Michael,

    Your nose is brown enough already, it’s ok to remove it from Mark’s backend now.
    Quite honestly, I am growing quite tired of reading about Facebook on this site.
    Are you planning on renaming this blog to TechFaceCrunchBook?

    Bye

31. Someones-Ex-Gf.com
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 7:40 am

    Whatever happened to surfing the real web on the iPhone? I’m sure the Facebook guys got some assistance for this application from Apple and I’m surprised they encouraged them to make an iPhone specific Facebook app.

32. Deals and Coupons
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:16 am

    Another reason to go and buy iPhone I guess.

33. Joe
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    I’m hoping that the release of this app means that Facebook is really paying attention to the iPhone now. It would be nice to see a way to upload pictures taken on my iPhone to Facebook on the go, rather than having to wait until I get home, sync them to my computer, etc. I’ve already tried emailing them to the Facebook mobile uploads email address, and of course I have my account set up for mobile, but it just kicks the emails back saying that they’re not coming from a mobile phone (obviously because it’s coming from a real email address, rather than an MMS message).

    Facebook, if you’re listening, please implement this feature.

34. Al Gore
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:20 am

    Facebook is about a generation behind my contributions to the Internet. I am working on the third generation of websites. Coming to an Iphone near you. And open source to boot.

35. Webby
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:24 am

    (Opinion based on screenshots)

    Tabs inside tabs is the gold standard of iPhone web design? Please say it aint so Arrington!

36. Ed
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:26 am

    Similar thing announced today for viewing books…. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap.....iPhone.php

37. timheuer
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am

    this is cool, i’ve been working on an interface myself and had even contacted joe about helping get some better api support internally. it’s been out for a while http://fp.timheuer.com but is simple compared to this (although mine does let you save your session). of course if you control the facebook api’s it is easier to create a better one!

38. Benjamin
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:33 am

    A scaled down version of Facebook that only works on one phone?? Why is this “UltraCool” ??

    I use Opera Mini that works almost perfect on the regular Facebook site, and on virtually any phone.

    **Disclaimer** I work for Opera Software

39. Tim
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:35 am

    I checked it out in Firefox as someone else recommended.

    It really is well done. There is no doubt about it.

    I am surprised by all the evil-wishers in here. Then again, great change and advances are almost always confronted by ignorance and objections.

    Not to say the platform really looks that revolutionary, but Mike is right. It is probably the best iPhone or perhaps better to say mobile app out there.

    Tim McCormack
    iRent2u.com - The Online Rental Marketplace

40. Your Daddy
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:38 am

    Interesting, it doesn’t work on WM6.

41. Anon
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:42 am

    @Tim(38). No ignorance here Tim, just some well founded questions about some of the choices that have been made and their impact on the wider movement of device independence and the One web.

    You were right first time though - its an iphone app not a mobile app - try it on a few mobiles - even the N95 - doesn’t work… so the question is still, why focus solely on the iphone and push iphone.facebook.com instead of producing something for a broad range of web enabled devices and update m.facebook.com…?

42. Velioncho
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:44 am

    How much has it helped to increase productivity? by negative 10 points.

43. 80s.mobi
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:46 am

    it’s basically the .mobi standard of displaying web content for mobile devices

44. Adi
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:58 am

    Every morning I wake and start typing http://www.tech….. I already know there will be 1254875 posts about Facebook!!!

45. EH
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:06 am

    I’m in the “a special site is a step backwards. use css” camp with otherMike and Anon.

46. the kid
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:15 am

    wow, i just checked it out and it is absolutely AMAZING. It makes all of the other websites that tried to do iphone interfaces look primitive. Kudos to Facebook!

47. Jesse
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:27 am

    The app really is pretty sweet. I love how it uses JavaScript to avoid loading new pages for different tabs. Mike, you better accept me as your friend bro.

48. Robert Seidman
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:46 am

    i agree with all the superlative adjectives being tossed around.

    The “full web” experiences still works, this is just easier to use because it *was*designed for the specific device. You have an opportunity to market two different products, which one do you want to market:

    “Easier to use, fun and ultracool!!” or

    “harder to use, but useful and kinda nice”

    If FB (or any other site) wants to develop apps for the iPhone, as long as their non-iphone app still work fine, why does anyone care?

49. Panamajack
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Looks great ! Try it on testiphone.com or something like it to get a better feel …

    The simplicitiy is nice though, and I’m thinking I might try it out as an alternative to the real facebook page for a bit — it doesn’t look like there are Facebook apps on the iPhone version !

50. Theo
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 10:17 am

    Just proves the point that “real internet” on a mobile device is ridiculous. Japan/Korea has two versions of every website - mobile and web. they’ve been doing it for 8 yrs (iMode launched in 1999).

    So just b/c Mr. Jobs says the mobile internet is dead we should all believe it? That’s crazy. Yes initial implentations of WAP sucked, but that doesn’t mean we should all be forced to be constantly zooming in and out of full web pages.

51. Mitre Peak
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 10:32 am

    Check out iphonemyebay.com.

    They released it about 2 weeks after the iPhone was launched and it does the job - easy to use bidding on eBay. GUI could use some work for incorporating more XHTML but I hear that they are adding more features and possibly a product name change.

    I agree with the comments on the sliding right - if you are doing it just to look cool and mimic the iphone not sure the value. If the pages are lightweight and designed for mobile communications the load time should be minimal. Already I have seen many “apps” that try multiple XHTML effects but then ruin it by having the user have to reload or load new pages. Thus it actually makes it worse in terms of overall download speed and size.

52. Dan
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 10:39 am

    I love how you can click to call from any profile with a phone number……Imagine how useful this will be once Facebook Mobile works on the iPhone.

53. sujamthe
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 10:54 am

    Mike,

    Facebook on iphone sounds great as two brands. You should have been at Mobile Monday at AOL. They had a parade of great browsers and Apps on iphone.

    Geodesic and Soonr have set the golden standard for iphone App technology that Facebook, the social networking leader has to follow there beyond doubt!

54. Steve Elbows
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 11:06 am

    The iphone and AJAX have made it an exciting and messy time to be looking at mobile web applications.

    I mean I would like to agree that its better to just use different CSS for mobile versions of sites, but AJAX makes this an inadequate solution IMHO. And until such a time as mobile devices may come with foldout screens or something else that changes the use experience, screen res etc, a site that delivers a compelling mobile user experience, really needs some elements that have been tweaked to get the best from various devices.

    I am greatful that Apple is able to capture the popular imagination with its iPhone, and force others to up their game. Being in the UK I just got the Nokia N800 internet tablet, which has now got a browser that can do AJAX & its got flash 9 as well unlike iphone). Its not as flashy or smooth & sexy a UI as the iphone has, but its pretty good and I think the screen res is higher. But where are the websites that have been customised to work well with this device? I hope it happens sometime. Maybe Intel’s MID platform will help to build upon these mobile linux efforts, and we could have some sort of standard, otherwise there will be a nightmare prospect of having to code a different version of the site for different devices.

    I was hugely unimpressed by Apple locking down 3rd party app development on the iphone, but it has at least had the effect of concentrating development efforts for the iphone solely onto websites, and what with all the hype its obviously proved irresistable for companies to see what they can do.

    Theres a lot of work on the road ahead towards really enjoyable small-screen user experience, years of pondering this stuff with pocketpc’s left me disheartened, 2007 is starting to refresh me, between apple and mobile linux, the future’s looking pretty interesting.

    Id really like to see recent developments in offline browser storage (AIR & google gears) make it to these mobile platforms, mmmm real PDA killer

55. Don Jones
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 11:11 am

    The pictures look pretty bad, hope the reality is better!!

56. Jack D
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 11:13 am

    this is awesome. i am going to start using the iphone site on my desktop rather than the real one. this is so much simpler than the new facebook after they opened up the network and applications. and there is no minifeed! iphone facebook may have just saved that site.

57. Alaska Miller
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 11:19 am

    People have been making fun of AOL-ers since the beginning, the backlash for Facebook-er shall begin soon. Why bother playing in the sandbox teeming with kiddies that don’t understand what real world and real life is about?

    Boohoo, look at this shitty site that slides all around! It’s on your iPhone! How about they make it so that the original Facebook site isn’t over 600kb so that my freakin’ mobileIE can load it on EVDO?

58. vinu
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 12:15 pm

    ha ha … good to know I am patriotric

59. chris
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 12:51 pm

    How about some REAL news Michael,

    Like

    “Court acquits allofmp3.com site

    Owner of music download site allofmp3.com not guilty of breaching copyright”

60. Arjun
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    WOW.

    I actually held off getting an iphone but this would tip the decision for me.

61. Robert Gorell
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    Content Robot has an iPhone plugin for WordPress. We were first to demo, and it still looks great and is bug-free.

    WP bloggers should check it out…

62. StanD
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    “I have not seen a better iPhone website than this one. If you have, let me know”
    Michael. Take a look at GHQ (dot com) It already looks and works well on my Nokia tablet. Presumably the same on iPhone.

63. David Mackey
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:44 pm

    Now if only we could get fast internet on the iPhone…

64. Riko Kwe
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    How would facebook look like on the ‘big-ass-table’ (Microsoft Surface)?

65. ***V***
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    Opera mini allows it to appear properly. No reason for a scaled down version. Though it’s great to see Facebook on top of things.

66. Ouriel Ohayon
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

    the iPhone version of Facebook works great in Netvibes. Here is how to get it http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouriel/1127665440/

67. Neil Anderson
    

    August 15th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    Facebook is in everyone’s face again. Good show!

68. Rosa
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 1:06 am

    Can’t you get screenshots on iPhone (instead of photos)? At least on Nokia phones you can get screenshots with various applications (see http://www.handango.com).

69. Riko Kwe
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 1:35 am

    How about video navigating facebook on iphone? Anyone has it?

70. Video
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 1:35 am

    There’s a video here: http://www.t3.co.uk/news/247/c.....our_iphone

71. Sam Daams
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 7:06 am

    @21 Mike, having looked at it closer, I’d have to say my initial enthusiasm has cooled down quite a bit for exactly the reasons Anon and you mention. The problem of course is the specific site that only works for specific browser thing, something that the TUAW blog also points out is exactly against all that the iphone stands for. While a bigger company can get away with this, as a developer the last thing I want to have to do is start doubling up on development work for different browsers, mobile or not. I’ve got a mobile stylesheet set up on my site and it works nicely enough, excepting the speed and screen res. issues (not sure how an iphone would handle it, but I dare say ok). But that’s more a device and network issue than anything to do with the site.

    But it’s still pretty frikkin cool looking though imo. Good marketing play, because I think FB really needed some more people writing about them

72. Matt S
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 7:12 am

    This site also works on my blackberry with the Opera 4.1 mini browser …

    I think it’s time to start handing creds to Opera ….

73. Steve Elbows
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    Sam Daams: I disagree, sites specifically developed for iphone are not against all that the iphone stands for. This is because Steve Jobs said that the way to write apps for the iphone was to make webapps, and Apple provided ways for webpages to access some of the iphone functionality via javascript. So you are bound to get sites that take advantage of that.

    But yes it is also true that the iphone and other recent devices are all about being able to browse the real web properly on a mobile device. This is true, and will remain true, its just people can also make specific versions of the site to get the absolute most out of devices, if they choose to.

    I’ll look on the bright side of this mess for now and call it the best of both worlds, although probably wouldnt see so many web-based iphone apps if they actually opened up the iphone enough to let people run proper apps on the device.

74. anon
    

    August 16th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

    Aren’t the items on the right picture supposed to be confidential (for friends only)?

75. Clintus McGintus
    

    August 18th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    does it look as good and work as well on a windows mobile device?

76. Rodney Rumford
    

    August 21st, 2007 at 1:48 am

    You can read an in depth rating and review of this app here with tons of screen shots and a 4 minute demo video.

    This is top notch. Facebook did an amazing job with this application.

    http://facereviews.com/2007/08.....wows-users

    Rodney Rumford

77. Chinarut
    

    August 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 am

    folks - some of you are missing the point!

    the point is not to get what works on your big desktop working on a phone but rather walk into Steve Jobs’ vision - that he is putting the UI of your mobile device in the hands of the software developer (and now web designer) - where it belongs! leave the hardware up to Apple and let the creative juices of all the s/w developers in the world come up with the perfect interface - one that is able to change with time as we all discover new ways to interact with each other!

    if you’re not convinced, hit the “search” button and it mysteriously looks like an address book - if it is true that iPhone functions will be available via JavaScript, then “call this contact” will naturally show up next to “profile and message” - in fact, we are already seeing a replacement for the tried and true text messaging. expect to see a follow on “Skype Me” or some such VoIP integration…

    this is all speculation but I’d put my money on it and don’t even have an iPhone! hint hint…

78. bcahill@visibletechnologies.com
    

    August 22nd, 2007 at 1:54 pm

    Mike,

    It’s great to see your posts from TechCrunch flowing into our TruCast application.

    Blake Cahill
    VP of Marketing
    Visible Technologies
    http://www.visibletechnologies.com

79. bobbyd
    

    August 23rd, 2007 at 4:04 pm

    Great all we need now is iPhone’s up here in Canada! Come on Apple we may be like a second Oregon to you but we are fans none the less! Jeez!

80. Mickey
    

    August 24th, 2007 at 6:34 am

    It may not be much to look at on a PC, but it’s not blocked at work. Too bad it’s my last day of my internship, haha. But it’ll probably be blocked soon enough.