A pairing of the two most hyped tech products of the year: Facebook released what is arguably the single best iPhone-customized website to date at iphone.facebook.com. Like the Netvibes iPhone site which launched late yesterday, it isn’t much to look at in a normal browser. But open that thing up in an iPhone and you’ve got a very usable site.
The site uses javascript to avoid page refreshes, although there is still some lag in moving around the site (this is an iPhone issue). The main navigation tabs – Home, Profile, Friends and Inbox – are at the top of the site. Click on any person and see their profile, wall or photos via a horizontally scrolling interface.
Overall I’d give this a top rating except for the occasional javascript error that crashed it out. Given that this hasn’t officially launched yet, I’d actually expect more bugs than I was able to find.
I have not seen a better iPhone website than this one. If you have, let me know. A lot of startups are going to look to this as the gold standard. At least for now.
Look for an announcement on the Facebook blog sometime this morning.
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.
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.
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!
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
The pictures look pretty bad, hope the reality is better!!
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.
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?
ha ha … good to know I am patriotric
How about some REAL news Michael,
Like
“Court acquits allofmp3.com site
Owner of music download site allofmp3.com not guilty of breaching copyright”
WOW.
I actually held off getting an iphone but this would tip the decision for me.
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…
“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.
Now if only we could get fast internet on the iPhone…
How would facebook look like on the ‘big-ass-table’ (Microsoft Surface)?
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.
the iPhone version of Facebook works great in Netvibes. Here is how to get it http://www.flic...iel/1127665440/
Facebook is in everyone’s face again. Good show!
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).
How about video navigating facebook on iphone? Anyone has it?
There’s a video here: http://www.t3.c..._on_your_iphone
@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
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 ….
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.
Aren’t the items on the right picture supposed to be confidential (for friends only)?
does it look as good and work as well on a windows mobile device?
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://facerevi...tion-wows-users
Rodney Rumford
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…
Mike,
It’s great to see your posts from TechCrunch flowing into our TruCast application.
Blake Cahill
VP of Marketing
Visible Technologies
http://www.visi...echnologies.com
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!
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.
but how do I access my notifications from the iphone?
Nice and knowledgeable post.
i like your service and i think you need more adverticement on the program cos most of the people do not know about it
thank you techrunch family
You can “comment” on wall discussion using facebook on iphone. You can write to the wall but then the discussion is not “connecting” to each others. Some people might see the wall post and not knowing the context.
This is a big drawback in my opinion.
I meant you CAN’T (not can) in the first sentence.
I love how it uses JavaScript to avoid loading new pages for different tabs. Thanks.
I have a red number 1 on the upper right hand of the Facebook Icon on my iPhone. How do I get rid of it? I believe I read all the posts posted to me. Thanks.