Facebook today finally announced the release of its long-awaited iPad app. In a blog post by software engineer Leon Dubinsky, Facebook’s announcement of the app came ahead of its actual availability on the App Store. The iPad app is available as a universal app, which means that the updated version of the iPhone app also includes the iPad version.
The iPad app was revealed by TechCrunch in July and apparently had been mostly completed back in May. For some reason the company had waited until today to release the app. In the meantime, Jeff Verkoeyen, the lead engineer for the project who had been working on it for eight months, left Facebook to join Google.
The iPad app was anticipated for the release of the iPad back in April 2010 but it was not forthcoming. Apparently, given Verkoeyen’s time table, Facebook did not start the project until September 2010.
The app is very neatly designed with a sidebar that lists all the news feeds, updates, photos, groups, as well as account settings. Notifications show up on top of the screen with drop down menus to show all the updates. The app lets you chat or play certain Facebook games directly from the iPad, and it also shows pictures in full screen size.
The iPhone version also received an update to match the looks of the iPad app and it’s now much sleeker with the notification updates accessible from the top bar as well. The sidebar on the iPad app is also carried over to the iPhone version and slides to show the feed.
You can check out photos of the app on the blog post or update your Facebook app from the iTunes App Store.
