It’s no secret that the big brass at Facebook isn’t all too pleased with the current state of the social network’s native Android app. Over the summer there were reports that founder Mark Zuckerberg was forcing members of his development team to make the switch to Android simply to see how bad the Facebook experience really is. With Android deployment at an all time high, the company is now encouraging more employees to take up an Android smartphone to aid in the development of a better app.
The campaign consists of a series of posters asking employees to “switch today.” The one above is particularly telling with its depiction of Android outpacing the iOS ecosystem that Facebook’s staff is so tied to. According to a Facebook spokesperson, the whole thing is working with a larger number of employees now carrying devices from both platform.
The changeover extends beyond the development team, but all Android-toting employees are being provided with a beta of the new Facebook app for Android. The internal version of the software includes a nifty bug-reporting technique. When the app does something particularly frustrating, users can “rage shake” their phone to report the bug. Something tells us this won’t make it to the public version, but it sure sounds like an intuitive way to get bug input.
We sure hope the initiative has the desired result. Personally, I uninstalled the Facebook app months ago and rely on the browser if I want to check the network on my phone (let’s be honest: it’s the same experience, anyway, sans a few not-so-useful notification options).
A truly native version with a bit more care to detail could remedy the Facebook woes we have experienced since the app first came to Android, and I share the stance of Zuckerberg. Until things are fixed, Facebook for Android is virtually unusable.
[via TechCrunch]
