If you are a Windows Phone 7 user then you most likely have the Facebook application installed. It is free, and when it came out was and in my opinion is the best looking Facebook mobile app out there. However it was missing some features that came to iOS and Android. First was obviously notifications, this would be perfect for the live tiles on WP7, however with this update we still don’t get them. However WP7 finally gets Places and Photo Tagging.
Places is simply added to the main navigation and allows you to view where all of your friends are, search for nearby location, and check in at them. The user interface here is pretty nice. When searching for a location you can actually see immediately under the name of the place if there is a deal when you check in. Checking in is as simple as hitting check in, selecting friends, and check in again. You can also add a little description of what you are doing, just like on the other mobile platforms. One really nice feature they added when searching for a place was the ability to simply hit “directions” and it will pull up Bing maps and direct you to where you want to go.
The second addition here is the ability to tag photos from your phone. Simply select a photo and under more options there is a “tag photo” option. Selecting this will put you in an edit type menu, where you can tap on the photo of where you want to tag and then select the friend you are tagging. It is really simple to use and is nice on the go. I don’t really tag anyone in photos so for me this isn’t a huge deal, but it is welcomed.
Some new options are also available under “settings” which are “run under screen lock” and “allow Facebook to access your location”. These make sense for the new features and I believe are welcome.
Update Summary:
Windows Phone 7 users finally get some new features added to the application, however it is still not up to date with the other mobile platforms as iOS and Android just added integrated chat into the apps. Perhaps WP7 users will get this and live tiles in the next update…one can only hope.