Facebook Abandoning HTML5 to Speed Up iOS App
Facebook engineers are completely rewriting the social network iOS app to make it faster. The app, which has been criticized by many users for being extremely slow, was built using the HTML5 Web-based programming language.It makes the app much easier for Facebook's engineers to port to other platforms like Android or Windows Mobile -- but it fails to take advantage of the iOS operating system.
As a result, the app -- which is used for everything from posting status updates to checking in to restaurants -- is much slower than comparable apps written to be a native app from the bottom up. Facebook knows this and is giving the app a complete rewrite in Objective-C, turning it into a true iPhone app and making it much faster. Nick Bilton, reporting for The New York Times:
I had the opportunity to see the yet-unreleased iPhone application and its fast. Blazing fast. The two developers I spoke with said the new application is currently being tested by Facebook developers and is expected to be updated this summer.According to Bilton, the new and improved Facebook app should be released next month.
Don’t get too excited, though. The new Facebook app looks exactly like the old one. Facebook hasn’t changed the design, but rather focused on speed.
Facebook for iOS is available free from the App Store. [Direct Link]
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