Facebook 26.0

Facebook is, without a doubt, the most popular social network in the world. With over 1.35 billion monthly users, this isn’t exactly something that we can argue about. What we can talk about, however, is how its mobile apps have ended up encompassing most of what the service has to offer.

Clean interface

First things first: the Facebook app interface. As you can expect, the app is pretty clean and easy to handle, offering you an experience that is quite similar to what you get on your desktop computer, for instance. The layout is pretty much the same. As you launch the app, you get quick access to the news feed, which is the one thing Mark Zuckerberg wants the Facebook mobile apps to focus on, but more on that later.

In the News Feed, you’ll find the latest status updates from your friends, links they shared, comments they’ve made, as well as posts from the pages you like. There will also be suggested videos, and various ads that were placed there so Facebook could monetize the mobile app too, especially since there are over 1 billion mobile monthly users.

This is also the place where you can update your own status from, post pictures or check in various locations.

There are also some additional tabs in the lower area of the app, which you can use to jump to the friend requests you’ve received, to the notifications area or to the “More” area. Tapping on the “Messages” button will simply prompt you to use Facebook Messenger, the standalone app the company pushed a few months back.

Take care of your privacy

The “More” area will basically give you access to most of what the side panel in the desktop version of Facebook has to offer. That means quick access to your list of friends, events, nearby places, groups you enjoy, apps you have activated, and the Settings area. From there, you can access the Help Center, the Privacy Shortcuts, the News Feed Settings and the other, General Settings, for instance.

Higher up, we mentioned the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is seeking to split the Facebook app into more pieces. In a recent Q&A session, he said that mobile apps need to perform specific tasks. For instance, Facebook needs to be focused on delivering people their News Feeds, and access to their friends’ profiles, while Facebook Messenger will help them communicate. The recently launched Facebook Groups gives people quick access to the groups they’re part of on the network and a way to add more to the list, which means that there are quite high chances to see Groups slowly disappearing from the Facebook main app and people getting pushed towards this new app too, just as it happened with Messenger months ago.

Portable version:

• Facebook for Windows Phone
• Facebook for Android