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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"
Hi
I wrote a little app called Fonebook which syncs your facebook friends photos into your outlook contacts - when you then sync with your phone you get the profile image.
Im looking at adding a few more features and possibly creating a "Pro" version to try and recoup the cost of the library Im having to use so I can get full sized images into outlook (the outlook api sucks!)
Im not sure which windows phone allow the caller id to be full screen (I know mine doesnt!) - if you know of anywhere I might be able to get a list of smartphones/pda's which support this could you point me in that direction please!
If you have any ideas for this type of application, or have any suggestions when it comes to creating a "pro" version of something as oppose to relying on donations could you please fill in this short survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=xOAJWNgBXsnGAopW7zqDNQ_3d_3d
Thanks for reading this (the current version of the app is here in case you are curious: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2442338999
Thanks
Ross
you might wanna take a look at s2u2 it's a iphone slider app which gives us wm touch screen users full screen caller id if there was a way for your app to resize the facebook pictures to the size of the screen wqvga, qvga, vga, wvga
you may also want to look at skybook. I think it has a similar feature where it takes the profile picture from facebook and adds it to your contacts picture. I tried it once with skybook and it worked fairly well until I received errors with logging in, so I uninstalled it.
using the new facebook app from winmo 6.5 and don't have any issue logging in, only problem is that I can't update the photos like in skybook.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
good luck
I would also be interested in some way to sync the contact details from Facebook to WM.
people tend to keep facebook up to date with phone numbers email addresses etc, and it would be handy to have this information downloaded automatically.
EDIT: I see you have covered the fact that Facebook block this option on the page above, but I still think its a worthy idea and have joined the petition!
Fosimo was the only thing that I could get to work for syncing facebook data. My only complaint was that it added everyone's birthdays to my calendar...
I like the idea behind this, however, I do not use outlook on my home pc.
Does this work without hooking your phone to your PC? I ask because I rarely ever sync my phone with my home PC, I do sync to my work PC but I don't sync the email, and it's a work pc, so no facebook there....
I know that new SPB mobile shell program does this but I really don't see a point in installing that and keeping it around just to sync outlook pictures. I prefer to use my touchflo that came installed on my phone. I just picked up a Fuze, my old phone was an 8525 and SPB was the best solution for it...
Is there a standalone program that would do the same thing?
You really should put a mirror of that file somewhere else, man. SkyDrive is being broken. I was searching for an app like that, saw Fonebook and OutSync. i don't care which one I get, i just want a link. Hors Skydrive, please.
well to be honest fonebook is the best app i saw so far for syncing facebook contact pics with outlook contacts.
i liked the feature to be able to choose manually which facebook contact corresponds to an outlook contact. (a missing feature to many other apps)
the only problem it has is that at the moment almost everyone use high resolution screen mobile phones with vga and wvga and the pics that sync with your app are very small and blurry when viewed in full screen incoming call apps like s2u2 that most people use. so a great addition to your app would be to add an option to download the contact pics to a chosen resolution that corresponds to vga/wvga/qvga/wqvga and to save the cashe somewhere in the pc even.
please keep this project up and running and update it asap
Got a Topaz, and have TF3D (the touchy interface from HTC), set that up to sync image to facebook.
So My images go Facebook -> phone -> outlook
instead of Facebook -> outlook -> phone
Works for me.
Personally, I don't think there's much money to be made on this (a pro version) when newer phones have this built in, and there's already other good free apps out there, unless you can add some seriously impressive functions, and even then, the free competitors would soon add those same features.
- Anthony
Hope can syncs the high resolution pics in next version.
And is it cannot syncs the birthday if the user didn't type the birthday year?
[Added 30Euro Bounty]
Hello Everyone,
I seem to have run into a shortcoming of both WinMo 6.1 and 6.5.
Apparently (I have searched the forums for this quite extensively) there is no way to have a notification (sound or vibration) to notify the reception inform of an email that has been pushed from the exchange server directly to a subfolder of the inbox, based on a server side rule (i.e. having all the emails sent from my office go directly to my inbox subfolder that is labeled Work Emails).
I am sure plenty of people have exchange accounts with subfolders and would like to see this issue resolved. Moreover, I cannot understand how this feature is present on email clients for Symbian devices but is not supported in Microsoft's own Pocket Outlook (RoadSync for Symbian has this feature).
I am not a programmer, but it would appear bizarre that there is no way to associate a notification to an email, simply because it does not appear in the inbox but in a subfolder of the inbox. From a logical point of view, all that is required is to exted the notifications that apply to new emails in the inbox to ALL new emails both in inbox AND subfolders.
I am willing to pay 30Euros to whomever develops a hack/registry tweak/cab...whatever, that can:
1) make WinMo notify an email that has been pushed to a inbox subfolder;
2) integrate the solution in TF
So far the only solution that have been suggested are:
1) FlexMail 4, that is not compatible with TF or SPB shell
2) http://www.blackmonlabs.com/faq.html. However even this solution is not what I am looking for.
3) CheckMail 2.0 (http://www.soft32.com/download_234983.html) is an app that does exactly what I am looking for, I am now testing if it works with TF3d
Please help,
[I honestly cannot understand how this issue has not been addressed yet]
did you try second today or similar software that allows wmToday and touchflo to run at the same time?
it may work with http://www.blackmonlabs.com/faq.html.
Let me see if I understand this correctly.
I install second today, and for that today screen I install blackmonlab application; therefore, on my second today screen I would get subfolder email notifications.
However, if I understand correctly, I would still have no form of notification when in TF3D today screen. I would still have to switch to my second today screen and verify whether I have received new emails or not.
I don't know....this appears to be so strange. I cannot believe all the Microsoft Exchange users have not in some way addressed this.
Let's see if the addition of a small bounty attracts some good willed programmers.
I am sure there must be a number of people who could use this fix.
nsane said:
Let me see if I understand this correctly.
I install second today, and for that today screen I install blackmonlab application; therefore, on my second today screen I would get subfolder email notifications.
However, if I understand correctly, I would still have no form of notification when in TF3D today screen. I would still have to switch to my second today screen and verify whether I have received new emails or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah dude give it a try before dismissing the idea. it might work well for you
also, whats the name of the app that adds today screen as a tab in touchflo. it might work better than second today or mtoday
I don't know.
In fairness, I am new to WinMO as I recently moved from a nokia communicator E90; I also have some Blackberry experience, since my GF has one.
Honestly, I just love WinMO so far. However, the whole messaging system is pretty weak compared to other platforms and I am rather unsatisfied.
I have not tried SPB mobile shell 3.0, as of yet.
I have mainly used TF Rhodium version and Titanium.
I really like TF, however, I would get rid of both the SMS and Email tabs and replace them with one unique tab that incorporates a fast smooth messaging client. For someone who receives 30/40 SMS per day and about 80 emails, the TF is just very inefficient.
If there was a way to integrate a POWERFUL messaging client in either TF or SPB I would definitely try it. By integrating I mean a Messaging client that:
1) notifies me about SMS, Email (and subfolder emails) vibrating/ringing;
2) Visually modifies my TF3DHome/TitaniumToday/SPB now/ screen showing an envelope and the number of unread messages;
3) provides a pop-up preview (not necessary);
4) one finger tap from Home/today/spb now/ straight to the new Message (no scrolling/clicking to the tab, then clicking on the envelope).
Perhaps there is something like this and I am unaware of it?
hi, does the check mail 2.0 supported TOUCH FLO3D? i went to the description link it says only displays on Today screen.
CheckMail 2.0 does not support touchflo or any other Graphic shell.
Ok someone just messaged me with a solution which appears to be rather interesting.
Using BBconnect and BIS service from phone carrier or alternatively BBconnect and BES (for those who work in a company that runs a BES server).
Apparently BB connect can be integrated in TF3d without issues.
Can someone confirm perhaps?
Did you ever find a good solution to this problem? I too am dumbfounded that this is not natively supported, even in WM 6.5 which I'm running on my Fuze (Energy Rom 8/1 build).
Come on people, there has to be a solution!!!
that feature has never been supported by pocket outlook, nor the PC version of Outlook. ALthough the PC version finally gave the user the ability to create reminders based upon new email into a folder or email specifics. Likewise, PC version of Outlook will not give reminders on flagged items that are not in the inbox and you used to have to use an Outlook plugin to get to do that.
smittyofdhs said:
that feature has never been supported by pocket outlook, nor the PC version of Outlook. ALthough the PC version finally gave the user the ability to create reminders based upon new email into a folder or email specifics. Likewise, PC version of Outlook will not give reminders on flagged items that are not in the inbox and you used to have to use an Outlook plugin to get to do that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can definitely do this in the PC version of outlook with the built-in Desktop Alerts. It seems like it would be such a simple and useful piece of functionality to implement in WM. Anyone else heard of a good way to do this, especially in WM 6.5?
THe only solution I have found for this, that does not require a second today screen or closing down TF3D is a #rd party app called watch flag.
Here is the home page http://www.watchflag.com/
I used it with WM6.1, it did the job, I found the interface to be a bit clunky, and did not woirk entirely the way I wanted.
That is probably my fault becaue I could not get it to notify me on specific subfolders, I could only make it notify me on all subfolders.
In the programs defense it was over a year ago and has had revisions since then.
The other issues are the program is not free, but has a two week trial and while TF3D can be running , i think it just has regular on screen messages and does not integrate with TF3D message notifications.
Like i said I have not used it in a Year.
I just graduated from a Blackberry to the HTC Incredible. After a few days of use and way too much forum browsing, I still have a few issues that I cannot resolve. Please help if you know of any solutions!
1. PHONE: If I dial one of my local contacts and do not include the area code, the call log labels the call as UNKNOWN. This is somewhat frustrating as every phone that I've ever owned was sophisticated enough to known that I'm dialing a known contact even if the area code is not included.
2. CONTACT SYNC: I synced my Blackberry with Outlook. I had no problem getting all of my contacts into the Incredible, but now I want to sync them with Google Contacts and ditch Outlook. I cannot change the PC Sync label on each contact in my phone though, and I'm not even sure if it has anything to do with it.
3. CALENDAR RECURRENCE: I often need to enter meetings to repeat on multiple days of the week. For instance, I may have a review meeting every Tuesday and Thursday. Is there a calendar app that has the capability of recurrence in this manner? I know this is a popular problem, but I have been unsuccessful in finding a solution. It seems insane to have to enter these types of recurrences through Google Calendar to have them sync with the phone properly.
4. MAIL: If I setup my "native" or default google account in the HTC mail app, it syncs with IMAP to get all of the existing mail. HOWEVER, it will not show any new mail that comes in. I have unchecked the sync with the Gmail App ( I cannot remove the account from the Gmail App), but no matter what I do, I cannot get new mail in HTC Mail. Each time I try removing the account from HTC and setting it up again, the new mail shows up, but nothing new from then on.
5. POPUP NOTIFICATIONS: I love the notifications that I get in the status bar for new mail or text messages. Is there anything that I can use to have these notifications popup in a new window on my screen?
Please help! This is an awesome phone, but it just seems that some of the "basics" are missing.
Not sure about the rest but you can use Handcent for SMS Pop-ups. Just disable the regular notifications in the stock SMS app or else you'll get multiple notifications.
Like he said, handcent will give you a popup window, but dont confuse it for a window in the traditional Windows sense, you have to dismiss it to be able to do anything else after the sms arrives, you cant move it around or anything like that. If youre looking for like a widget to automatically view it, the stock widget seems to work fine.
The contacts issue drives me slightly insane as well, but it is a purely htc problem. All my contacts were formatted as 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx due to occasionally issues with needing 1 before the number, different area codes, etc. They worked just fine on the droid and synced right up to my google account. After pulling them to the incredible from my account they stay formatted like that, but apparently thats not good enough for htc. Its pretty tough to figure out how they want a number formatted, when a call is incoming it shows xxxxxxxxxx, in the contacts list it still shows it as 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx, and depending on the day, time, or weather it seems, the phone may or may not show the contacts name, or just unknown. Its pretty frustrating, to say the least, and I wish there was at least a easy to find guideline on how the contact list works so if i felt like going through and changing contacts, I could.
If you uncheck mail sync with the google account it wont automatically update your mail. Have you tried opening the gmail app, menu then refresh?
Anyway most of your problems stem from the Sense UI, which, although nice in some respects, falls well short of the mark in others. Unfortunately at this time there is no way to remove it until someone succeeds in rooting the phone and unlocking all the partitions. Given the problems devs had with the eris and the level of protection HTC built into the incredible, It may be quite a while until we can get a different rom on the phone.
Does anybody know of any way to get the Tasks / ToDo's to a tile? The calendar app does not show them on it's tile.
***Note! I'm talking about the Outlook client Tasks which Outlook.com also supports, and several apps on Android. The Windows Phone Calendar for some reason call's these "ToDo's", even though all other MS applications call them tasks.
So I'm not interested in any independent task apps / lists, which exist (too many, don't make any more...). Point is to have the existing Outlook client and Outlook.com solution and the same tasks on many computers & devices.
I've tried probably everything from the Store and Googled a lot; no solution appears to exist?
There's also a Uservoice forum for this feature to the stock Calendar/ToDo's: https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/...to-do-items-on-the-calendar-live-tile-and-loc
I have been looking 4 something like this, but no luck. Since I do need Tasks or ToDo's in a Live Tile (just to keep me reminded), I have downloaded an app called TODO - and it does just that - pointing out several tasks for me in a live tile. No reminders, no nothing, just this. Perfect for me.