Facebook 3.0 for iPhone released and reviewed

As expected, Apple last night approved the highly anticipated Facebook 3 app for the iPhone and iPod touch – 11 days after it was submitted for approval. If you have a previous version installed you'll get an update notification when you tap the Updates button. The newest version of the popular app adds several new features, including:

- Landscape mode - 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

(emphasis mine)

TechCrunch has posted a review of the Facebook 3 app saying it may be the most useful app on the iPhone yet. Hewitt notes in a Facebook post that the one feature everyone is asking for, Push Notifications, didn't make it into 3.0 but that we can expect it in a 3.1 update "later this summer."

Developer Joe Hewitt has been a vocal critic of Apple's app review process taking issue with Apple's guilty until proved innocent approach to dealing with developers, saying "They don’t trust us, and I resent that, because the vast majority of us are trustworthy." Hewitt proposed a radical change to the approval process, calling for Apple to remove it altogether.

The Facebook app is currently rated 4+ on the App Store.