By 
Mark Zuckerberg just announced that Facebook will be refreshing its line of mobile apps, including the much-maligned Android version. Admitting that the app currently available on Google’s OS isn’t quite up to speed with its iPhone brethren, the new Android version will be treated to many of the same upgrades. Two big addition that hit both the iPhone and Android are support for Facebook’s revamped groups and the Foursquare-like Places for location check-ins.
No word on when exactly the new version will go live. It could be concurrent with this announcement or in the coming days/weeks. We will dig into it and let you know as soon as we find anything. The new version, 1.4.0, is now live in the Android Market. If you aren’t prompted to upgrade, grab it with the QR below. [thanks, crazydog and our other readers, for tracking it down.]
WILL THIS HAVE THE FRON FACING CAMERA FOR THE G2?
First
I got tired of the crappy app so I just created a bookmark shortcut on my homescreen to touch.facebook.com
I really hope they make this update good… facebook for android should be much, much more.
What about Blackberry? I know I should not ask that here. But it’s still important. And what is a Group’s use if my BB friends cant really use it?
Just saw the update in the Market.
I just updated. It seems much faster.
Still no chat?
It already updated. (Nexus one)
new version is available in market
does anyone have info on why it is so much different than the app on the iphone? I am a loyal DX owner but i have to admit, FB for ios4 blows androids FB out of the water.
Zuckerberg explained why the Android app is so far behind Iphone’s app…
Man… this thing crashed my phone into oblivion… had a blank call screen after it was done giving me the Force Close prompts… pulled the battery, now it’s running like a charm. I wonder what happened. Anyone else have some serious issues at first?
Hmm…don’t care about places. It’s dangerous and a stalker’s dream come true.
yup same as above
My facebook app also crashed on my Nexus One Phone. I hope after reboot my phone it works well.
no wonder the picture link on touch.facebook.com is not working today…must be this update affected it…hope facebook will fix it soon…
Hmm, still doesn’t seem to support video uploads. Not impressed…
Fyi, prior to starting this app just make sure you kill the existing Facebook via a task manager. No need to reboot.
Crashed my n1 also. What the heck!?
Somewhat pointless update for me. Groups hangs at “Loading groups…” and Places goes straight to “This feature will be available in your region soon. Thank you for your patience.”
I hereby declare this update….gay! When are they going to embed facebook chat? When will I be able to change my default photo. LOOOOONG way to go facebook. long way to go indeed.
Not pointless Peter, notifications don’t just open the browser any more.
@Peter, you need to create groups from the desktop facebook app, then it will open. Did the same for me.
It’s live now!
I just got the update for Facebook. I had no issues with the new upgrade on my MyTouch slide. Hopefully, future updates will allow us access to Games and chat.
@laurie After adding a group and some members I get “Cannot fetch the user info at this time. Please try again later [110/Invalid user id]”
@dan I guess my expectations were a little higher than the payoff.
i want a fuckin chat button. i don’t care about places or groups for that matter. just give me a chat button and be allowed to know when someone im’s me. sure AIM has the functionality of providing the chat function but it’s another app which means more memory lost.
Force close, force close, force close. fun times.
Is it going to drain my battery?
Had one Force Close already and there still appears to be no Photo Tagging. Something BB and iPhone have had for quite some time and is pretty much a fundamental basic feature of Facebook..
Nice Places update though and the notification changes.
To any one who wants fb chat for android just download gochat. It even has a widget, and judging by the official facebook app I sincerely doubt that they could ever come out with a chat application as good as gochat’s 3rd party offering
Hey Guys…after installing, uninstalling, and then installing again just now…I get a black box on the home FB screen that says something about not able to retrieve notifications..unindexable,…the WHERE claus..da da da..try again later..blah blah…anyone else see this big black box..?
Thanks..
Wonderful! I still need what 10 apps to do everything I need to do on FB? FAIL!!
So once again I might as well just use my browser!
@StarbrdTack, it’s draining my battery (10% per hour!!) on my HTC Desire (Froyo LeeDroid 2.2e). I’ve rolled back to the previous (sucky) version of FB. I hope they will issue another update to fix this.
why does notifications open in the browser…. if thats the go, then whats the point of having a browser?
application*
Good article!!! I wonder if facebook places can actually beat FourSquare. However I see some sites like http://workplacetalk.com people can use to share gossip at work that are already built on top of facebook places. The advantage facebook has compared to other sites is Huge Huge user base.. Time will only tell who wins!!!