Facebook 3.0

Last week was a big week for Facebook users with iPhone handsets (or iPhone users with Facebook accounts, whichever works) as it brought the release of the much-talked about and much-awaited major update to the Facebook iPhone application. As promised by app developer Joe Hewitt, the latest version of the official iPhone client of Zuckerberg and company’s social networking and online marketing brainchild, Facebook 3.0, came packed with a slew of features that make this, hands down, the best version yet.

• See your upcoming Events and RSVP
• See your friends’ birthdays
• See Pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
• Write Notes and read your friends’ Notes
• Upload videos from an iPhone 3GS
• Upload photos to any album
• Complete photo management (create albums, delete albums, delete photos, delete photo tags)
• Change your Profile Picture
• Zoom into photos
• Like posts and photos
• See the same News Feed as the Facebook website
• Visit links in a built-in web browser
• See all of your friends’ friends and Pages
• See mutual friends
• Easily search for people and Pages
• Make friend requests
• Become a fan of Pages
• Quickly call or text your friends
• Create shortcuts to your favorite friends and Pages
• Friends sorted by first or last name according to your settings
• Chat friends sorted alphabetically

Take it from me. This version really is the best yet, both interface- and functionality-wise. I’ve been using it since it came out, and I must say that having the power to do the abovementioned tasks and functions on the palm of my hand, literally, now makes the iPhone app almost as powerful as the full site itself. The app suffers from intermittent display bugs and functionality hiccups, but it being fresh off the App Store’s grill, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that an update to boost its stability, among other welcome improvements, will be issued soon. For now, though, I’m thoroughly enjoying the current Facebook-on-iPhone experience and celebrating the fact that those darned quizzes and games that have been the subjects of many a rant did not make it on the above list.