RIM shows off Facebook for BlackBerry 10, Timeline support finally on the way [Video]

Research In Motion (RIM) this week had quite a few announcements at its BlackBerry Jam conference, including an updated Facebook app for BlackBerry 10, both of which will be released simultaneously next year. While the app was briefly shown off during the keynote on Tuesday, the Canadian company on Thursday (today) revealed a demo video.

This is the first time that RIM has shown off Facebook for BlackBerry 10 for the public at large:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V51LkyG264

As you can see, the new app includes a significantly faster News Feed, drop-down menus, as well as the peek functionality that is core to BlackBerry 10. More importantly, it finally supports the no-longer-so-new Timeline profile.

Unlike Facebook for Android and Facebook for iOS, RIM develops the Facebook app for BlackBerry. This allows for arguably better integration with the operating system (just like in previous versions, Facebook messages and notifications show up in BlackBerry 10’s main messaging pane). Unfortunately, this has also led to significantly slower development, and quite frankly, a crappy app compared to what Facebook offers on Android and iOS.

Lack of Timeline support has been one of the most noticeable lags in the Facebook app for BlackBerry. While it’s finally getting there, it’s worth wondering whether Timeline will still be relevant in 2013. By then Facebook could have given it a complete revamp.

On Tuesday, TechCrunch reported that the BlackBerry 10 Facebook app crashed during the presentation, and then “it appeared the device stopped exporting the video signal to the external display.” The app also failed to update.

It’s clearly still a work in progress, and one that the 60 million users of Facebook for BlackBerry will be a keeping a close eye on. We’ll let you know as RIM shares more information on the app’s development.

See also: RIM updates Facebook for BlackBerry with refreshed icons, enhanced birthday alerts, Event support

Image credit: Joan Kocur