Facebook, the social networking giant, has launched a version designed specifically for the iPhone. All the normal features like news feed, messaging, and status updates are there, but the layout has been specially reformatted to gel with iPhone’s screen; links and icons are bigger to accommodate iPhone’s touchscreen.
When viewing photos or profiles simply rotate the iPhone and the data neatly fits the landscape orientation. You can call friends directly from their profiles (ones with phone numbers listed, of course) and utilize Google Maps to get event directions on the go.
Facebook engineer Joe Hewitt wrote on Facebook’s Official Blog:
The iPhone has not even been out for two months but has already changed the way people think about the mobile web…Today we are taking our first step into that new mobile world with a new Facebook website designed just for iPhone.
It seems that every day there’s a new iPhone app portal or an iPhone formatted version of a popular website. The iPhone really is, slowly but surely, changing the way we all think of the mobile web. Some complain that part of the appeal of the iPhone was that it featured the “real web” and that specially designed iPhone sites are somehow “cheating.”
Well, that’s a discussion for another day…back to Facebook’s iPhone page…
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington calls the new Facebook page the current “gold standard” in iPhone designed sites. Wired blogger Scott Gilbertson calls it “better than the main Facebook site.” (warning: quote taken slightly out of context.) Even if you’re not addicted to Facebook, go on and take a peek at their top o’ the line iPhone page.