Mobile application development platform Parse has released an update for Android apps that supports the third-generation of Facebook’s SDK. In this new version, developers will be able to take advantage of native logins, an updated user interface that ties in with a user’s Facebook friends and nearby places, and mobile app install ads tracking.
Parse is a service that helps developers build applications. If you need an email marketing integration, a telecommunications service, or some other service, then you can use Parse — it’s almost like a one-stop shop for all your development needs. Currently there are over 50,000 Parse-powered apps in the market across more than 100 million devices.
When Facebook released its latest Android SDK last November, it brought with it easier login functionality, installation metrics, and much more. More than 80,000 developers had downloaded it when it was being beta tested. With this SDK, anyone can now avoid the “Yet Another Password” fatigue that goes around when users need to constantly log into a site repeatedly.
Sure, Parse has had Facebook integrated into its system before, but now, it includes several new features that the social network released — something that is quite important given that Facebook intends to end support for version 2.0 of its SDK by June 13, 2013.
With this new version, all the power of Facebook’s SDK will be at the disposal of the developer. It has improved session management that will streamline the login process and integration with the native app and adds drop-in user interface components to help pick friends, locations, and displaying profile images. The SDK also allows the batching of requests to Facebook’s Graph API while providing “strongly-tped Java interfaces” for interacting with Facebook Graph objects. Lastly, and perhaps a useful tool, developers can now track mobile app installs through Facebook.
Parse tells us that it updated its platform in order to ensure that its developers could take advantage of all the latest features of Facebook’s SDK.
Photo credit: MARTIN OESER/AFP/Getty Images
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