Microsoft has updated its native Facebook app for Windows Phone. You can grab version 2.3 now from Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace. Alternatively, you can update the app by tapping open Marketplace on your phone, then tapping open the update queue (it might take a few hours for the update notification to hit your phone).
Here is Facebook for Windows Phone 2.3’s official changelog:
- News feed performance improvements.
- New panorama design.
- New profile design.
- Banner Images.
- Improved navigation.
- Pages.
- Groups.
- View Likes.
- Feed filters.
- Posting privacy.
- Bug fixing.
Sure, that’s not exactly the most coherent change log, and Microsoft’s suggestion on what to do when you get the new version is only slightly better: “Test out your groups. Visit your pages. Look at who likes your posts. Change the banner image. Check out the improved news feed performance. Use the new filters. Explore the improved navigation.” The software giant also said you’ll find “Improved panorama and profile designs, better news feed performance and navigation, new filters, and much much more.”
In other words, the update includes an improved design and support for some of the latest Facebook features. The new panorama layout puts requests, messages, and notifications at the top of the main interface. There’s also a Pages view, the ability to access Groups, the ability to see the Likes on any posts or photos, and the ability to apply filters to the News Feed.
Unfortunately, there’s still no full Facebook Timeline support, so I’d expect a new version to come very soon. Then again, the last version was released four months ago. Either way, hopefully version 2.4 will add other much-requested features, such as being able to easily tag people in posts and check-ins.
Although the Windows Phone operating system includes native Facebook support, the separate app extends the functionality by adding support for Pages, Groups, and other features. Unlike Facebook for Android and Facebook for iOS, Facebook for Windows Phone is not developed by Facebook: it’s built by Microsoft. According to Facebook, the Windows Phone app has 1.2 million monthly active users.
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