After jealously observing the Facebook app on my wife's Blackberry Pearl, I am shocked that neither ShoZu, Snap2Face/Skybook nor FriendMobilizer have come close to matching the simple elegance of Facebook for Blackberry. Each of the aforementioned Windows Mobile apps, I believe, will fail to become very popular among users because they are trying to do fundamentally different things than the official Blackberry and iPhone apps.
So I'm going to attempt to specify the basic features that would make for the best "Facebook for Windows Mobile" application. The developer who carries these out will, I predict, quickly dominate the rest.
What we already have
A couple of mobile-friendly versions of the FB user interface. Whether you use http://m.facebook.com in PIE, or http://iphone.facebook.com in Opera Mobile/IrisBrowser, or indeed desktop-level Facebook in Skyfire/Opera Mini/etc., we already have great ways to passively view most of Facebook. FB apps for WM appear to have devoted most efforts to remaking their own, sometimes uglier interfaces for viewing the same information. While this introduces the possibility of offline synchronization, this is nowhere near a key functional benefit offered on Blackberry and iPhone. The trend is toward more users having data plans and ubiquitous data connections.
A way to access Facebook Chat. 3rd-party multiprotocol chat applications offer this for Windows Mobile already.
Several ways to update your status. You can do this through Facebook Mobile, SMS, etc.
A crappy way to upload mobile photos. You can send an MMS to [email protected] - not ideal and lacks the ability to place photos in specific albums, tag, etc. But it is a start.
A crappy way to receive notifications. The FB notifications feed is actually available via RSS, and several free RSS clients exist for Windows Mobile.
A really crappy way to new FB message alerts and everything else. Suppose you registered a new Gmail account devoted solely to receiving Facebook notification emails. You could register that address with your Facebook settings, set it as the address to receive email notifications and then turn on notifications for everything that happens on Facebook. After setting up this email account on your Windows Mobile device, you could receive regular alerts from Facebook on your mobile device. (Heck, with System SEVEN beta or some other service that utilizes the IMAP IDLE feature, you could essentially have "push" FB alerts).
What we don't have (but Blackberry does)
Based on the features listed at http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/features/social/facebook.jsp , you can see that the man feature that WM users don't have is "push"-style homescreen notifications. On the Blackberry homescreen, the number of new Facebook notifications and messages sits beside a little FB icon. It is updated immediately as new messages and notifications are received.
Thus I would propose the following specifications for a WM Facebook app (or suite of mini-apps). The Facebook Developers API should be used, not some unreliable html-parsing library.
1. New/unread FB messages and notifications on a "push" or rapid-refresh basis. This either means (a) a Today screen plugin that lists the unread message counts and points Pocket IE to the appropriate http://m.facebook.com link when tapped, (b) WM popup notifications of the same, or (c) a MAPI interface library that allows the FB Inbox and/or FB Notifications feed to be added as regular mail accounts in Pocket Outlook - letting WM take care of popups if the user so desires.
2. A photo upload and tagging tool. The user must be able to select a photo (or take one) and then choose to either add it to any existing album or create a new one, followed by the option to tag that photo.
3. Dedicated Facebook chat. If it is easy, of course.
Everything else on Facebook - contacts search, Phonebook, etc - is just as easy to access on the existing Facebook Mobile site. My instinct is that developers inevitably waste our memory with bloated software when they make "native" interfaces that just rehash the content at http://m.facebook.com/
Or am I missing something? Maybe others have thoughts. I'm no developer and I don't mean to sound demanding - I'm just trying to give developers some ideas here.
would be fine if someone would fix the iphone.facebook.com java problems
libpurple already incorporates facebook im but i dont think there is a client for windows mobile that uses it. As for uploading, you can upload pictures but not videos directly from a touch series phone (videos are uploaded to youtube). If the protection can be stripped from an ipa and the can be decrypted then I dont understand why we cant port the facebook.app. I have an iPhone 3G and an iPod Touch, both jailbroken. I'll SSH into them and grab the files for the facebook app but the rest needs to be done by someone else. Just give me sometime to find them.
1. New/unread FB messages and notifications on a "push" or rapid-refresh basis. This either means (a) a Today screen plugin that lists the unread message counts and points Pocket IE to the appropriate http://m.facebook.com link when tapped, (b) WM popup notifications of the same, or (c) a MAPI interface library that allows the FB Inbox and/or FB Notifications feed to be added as regular mail accounts in Pocket Outlook - letting WM take care of popups if the user so desires.
2. A photo upload and tagging tool. The user must be able to select a photo (or take one) and then choose to either add it to any existing album or create a new one, followed by the option to tag that photo.
3. Dedicated Facebook chat. If it is easy, of course.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wFacebook will have ALL of these things that you mentioned. A little patience is all that is needed. I started developing this only 2 weeks ago Thanks for the breakdown though, it gives me something to work towards. I hope to have facebook chat up and running in the next release. Push style notifications will come as soon as I can figure out an "always signed on" connection to facebook. Photos and tagging are very easy to do, I just haven't gotten around to implementing it.
What you have to realize is that the blackberry apps and iPhone apps are both designed by facebook. They access facebook's data directly. Facebook does not allow this in its API so we have to find workarounds. Blackberry has nothing to do with it's facebook application (as far as I know). Facebook developed and maintains it.
Also, thanks for the tip on the rss feed. I did not know this and this may help with notifications!
Give computerjunkie some time....
And all the requested features will be hopefully implemented.
Btw since you have a BB and have positive feelings regarding it's user experience and user interface it would be great if you could dedicate some time to write down some detailed specs !
Ciao
Marco
The BB app doesn't really have a "push" notification system. All apps that use notifications, like Facebook and MySpace, are simple emails. When the same email account is registered under the BB profile, and Facebook profile, it recognizes the FB notification email as the app specific notification, and gives the notification instead of the email.
But, on the app, I really don't like it much, so I don't suggest it as your "template". All it really does is give you the notifications, allow you to update your status and view your friends list. You can't view profiles or photos through the app, it opens the browser, and you have to login! Further more, the news feed only shows the notifications, like birthdays and comments.
Try something like the BB MySpace app, I love that one! You can flow through pictures and view everything in the app.
wFacebook will be like the BB myspace app. You won't have to log in to the website to see info. It will be fetched from the application itself. Also, it will have push style notifications (maybe not ALL notifications but most: Wall, Inbox, photo comment, etc.). I am looking into an always on (or as close to always on) so when the notification occurs, wFacebook automatically fetches the info THEN notifies the user so all the user has to do is start up wFacebook and check the item. Also with the semi-always on connection, wFacebook users won't have to keep logging in to facebook which right now is taking about 1.5 minutes with wFacebook because of data speeds on mobile machines.
Problem with the xda app is it requires .NET 3.5
iphone.facebok.com in Skyfire is the best solution for me.
though I think a windows mobile facebook app is much needed I have to agree the very Bloated net cf is def not the way to go. I do appreciate all you are doing as this app has potential to be very useful . thanks again for all your hard work. pleasyo code in "C"
Hello friends,
I know that the internet is overloaded by GPS applications for Windows Mobile,
so I was wondering if this publication is worth the shot.
Here is a link to a Windows Mobile GPS application (which I wrote), that can do SMS, email notifications, track recording, sending recorded tracks (KMZ) to email, Geocaching, mapping (when online), statistical track analysis, and few other things.
I use it for sporting activities (aerial sports, though It fits any kind of sport you do).
I have been working on it for quite a while and it is free for use.
I’d be glad to get your feedback to my email (noted in the about screen).
http://www.logelog.com/utils
I've only owned this phone 10 days now and I've always had a live account to sync my contacts from previous winmo phones. Few days ago I went to check my live account and low and behold the phone get intergrated to you live account. You go into your live account and hover over Windows Live then a drop down box will show up. You select devices and then a page pops up with your phone there. You click on Find your phone.. then the wow starts.. You can map where your phone's current location is with Map it. Ring it to ring your phone so you can track it down. Lock it so no one can use the phone... Then Erase it if there's no way in hell your getting it back. Pretty cool functions to have for a just in case. Nobody at the ATT store knew anything about it. Oh you also get a 25Gb Skydrive. You need to download Windows Live Essentials 2011 to access the Skydrive from your computer.
I am guessing pretty much everyone has it linked. It is one of the first steps in the wizard.
Hmm I guess but the 3 ATT employees I talked to didn't. shrug and didn't even know about those features.
I am an avid player of the Xbox 360 so of course I connected my account info to the phone. The best part is having my entire contact list backed up online and being able to map the location of the phone for free.
I'm syncing my contacts to Google Contacts, but otherwise it's the same.
I do have to say, though, I'm very disappointed in the lack of Skydrive integration overall. For example, your Office docs can't be saved straight to skydrive, and the only way to get OneNote docs from skydrive is through th web browser. Once they're on your phone you can update them and they sync, but the method is pretty much weak. Skydrive should be fully integrated so that ALL documents you create, including folders, sync 1:1 to your skydrive account.
In fairness, Skydrive *itself* is still fragmented. For example, docs you sync with WLE 2011 (using Mesh) can't be edited directly in the browser and are located in a separate location from your main skydrive account and files. That's also lame.
Skydrive needs to become a SINGLE, unified storage area, where documents can be saved to/from PC, WP7 or from the browser, and all editable in the browser, on the PC, or on the phone.
I'm sure we'll get there, but it's frustrating that they didn't have it ready by launch.
Having used WP7 on HD2 for about a week now, I think I understand one of the reasons why WP7 seems to consume a lot of data.
Windows phone 7 appears to have one of the greatest (best?) online integration among all mobile OSs. Your contacts linked directly to Google, live services and Facebook. Your picture folders are synchronized with your Facebook picture uploads. Your people tabs are synchronized with online activities of your Facebook or windows live services friends.
All these are data-gobbling and they are on by default.
You need to find ways of managing your data connection to minimize data consumption and microsoft needs to provide a way for users to opt-out of these background data use.
This is probably not specific to the Energy ROM, let alone the Blackstone, and could well be across the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS.
I'm looking for a cross-platform, open standard contact file (like .VCF) that can export ALL the information that can be held for a contact in Windows Mobile 6.5. I'm talking about ALL the fields (e.g. Department, Assistant, Manager's Name, Goverment ID, Work E-mail 4 etc....).
When exported as a vCard (.VCF), there is only so much information that can be contained within it. Notably, the photo for each contact cannot be carried across through a vCard so I'm looking for a standard that can, that is also supported for Windows Mobile 6.5 or at least Windows Phone 7 & Android (for the future).
I considered the Windows Contact (.contact) standard, but it seems it is very restricted in what applications in can be exported/imported from/to. Even Outlook and Windows Live Mail don't seem to support these.
Does anyone know of any other standards that are more suitable and hold more info than the ageing vCard?