Facebook was preparing to release an update to its app for the iPhone Thursday, reports the Financial Times. The update plans were revealed when Facebook was contacted by the publication to comment on how terrible the feedback is on the current version of the app.
Besides saying that an update to the app would be available on Thursday, Facebook says it had only one engineer working on the app while its mobile team has been working on apps for Android and other mobile platforms. Facebook has roughly 84 million users of its iPhone app. Over 20,000 users have posted negative reviews about the app, which currently holds a two-star rating on the App Store.
The developer who worked on the app, Joe Hewitt, departed the company earlier this year. Hewitt had some issues with Apple’s application policies that led him to stop working on it and start work on the Android version before he left.
I’ve been using the iPhone app since its introduction into the App Store and it has never been very stable. Although many of Facebook’s features have been added to it since its introduction, many basic functions still cause users issues. I’ve personally encountered many message send errors, lockups and issues that required a delete and re-install of the app over my time using it.
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It looks like the Facebook app for iPhone is finally getting some love, but whether this will just be a minor update or a real effort to improve the functionality and stability of the app remains to be seen. The last update to the app was as recent as June 29th, although it doesn’t seem to have addressed many of the issues that people are seeing and its rating remains low.
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