Facebook The Facebook iPad application takes advantage of the iPad’s multitouch technology.
It has been the equivalent of waiting for Bigfoot. Bloggers had seen it. Developers said they had worked on it. Facebook denied its existence. Everyone else just wanted to know if it was real.
It’s the Facebook application for the iPad, which is finally out in the wild for everyone to prod, pinch and interact with.
After months of speculation and false alarms, Facebook said Monday that its official iPad application was available as a free download from the Apple App Store.
The app will likely benefit Apple and Facebook. Although the iPad is the biggest-selling tablet on the market, some consumers are not convinced they need it and opt for less expensive tablets. Seeing a slick Facebook app could convince people to choose an iPad over competitors, as there is no Facebook app specifically tailored for tablets running Google’s Android software.
For Facebook, a complete iPad application will keep people even more immersed in its service and add to the amount of time people spend on it. According to Nielsen Research, Americans spend eight hours a month, or 16 percent of their total time online, using Facebook’s Web site and mobile applications.
Leon Dubinsky, a software engineer at Facebook, wrote in a blog post on the company’s Web site that the app had been designed to create an immersive and “fun” experience on the tablet.
Mr. Dubinsky highlighted the use of multitouch gestures within the app, a feature that is not available on the Facebook Web site. “Use your fingertips to scroll through your News Feed. Give the screen a swipe to page through albums. Pinch a picture to zoom in,” he wrote.
Facebook highlighted other key features in the announcement: Photos and videos are given prominence in the app and can be viewed full-screen. Users can also capture photos and videos with the iPad and put them directly into the Facebook news feed. Gaming and Facebook Chat are also major components of the app.
Photos are a prominent feature in the Facebook iPad application.
So what took so long? Apple and Facebook have been in talks for months trying to resolve issues that came up last year when the companies disagreed about Facebook’s integration with Ping, Apple’s music-focused social network. Since then they have been caught in a stalemate over disagreements on coming projects.
Bret Taylor, Facebook’s chief technology officer, said in a phone interview that the app was delayed because it “just wasn’t ready yet.”
“We felt that the Facebook Web site on the iPad was a really good experience,” Mr. Taylor said, noting that the company wanted to make sure it was taking advantage of the possibilities of an iPad app before announcing a new product. “We really feel that we have built an app that takes full advantage of touch, photos and chat.”
Features from the Facebook iPad application have also been integrated into the company’s iPhone application, Mr. Taylor said.
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