Article by George Norman

On 15 Jan 2010

Version 3.1.2 of the Facebook for iPhone app has been released to fix problems users were experiencing with previous versions. We need to take a quick look at what happened for the past few days to understand what’s going on here. So here goes.

Facebook for iPhone 3.1 was released earlier this month; the update brought the much demanded Push Notification feature and the option to sync your friends with your address book. After v. 3.1 was released it came to light that the sync feature did not work properly. To fix the problem Facebook for iPhone v. 3.1.1 was released in a hurry.


But then it came to light that even version 3.1.1 was buggy. Facebook for iPhone users were reporting that the push notification feature worked just part of the time, when the feature did work there was no sound alert to notify the user, and last but not least, some users reported that the app just up and closed all on its own.

Now Facebook for iPhone version 3.1.2 has been released. The official description presents the following:

• Fix some crashes
• Fix a bug causing incorrect matches in address book sync
• Fix a bug causing incorrect matches for contacts with the same name

In related news, there seems to be a slight issue with the contact picture syncing functionality. The app takes your emails and phone numbers, sends them to Facebook, then they are cross-checked and synced back to your iPhone. The problem is that it syncs the images of people you’re not friends with as well, which could be a problem. TiPb received this message detailing just such a problem:

“Beware of your profile pics, or your boss might get one of you doing something you don’t want them to see! What happens is, [Facebook 3.1] takes [all] the emails and phone numbers on your iPhone and sends them to Facebook. It then cross-checks and syncs them back to your iPhone. That’s a major security flaw right there! It should only sync the ones you’re friends with.

So for an example I have my coworker’s email and cell but I am not her Facebook friend. All of a sudden when I got a call from my coworker I saw a picture of her in a bikini because that was her [Facebook] profile pic!

I’m using Outlook 2010 and it has a new feature called Suggested Contacts where it keeps all your emails you been using. Those sync to my iPhone via exchange 2007. So now I have Facebook profile pics in Outlook 2010 for a bunch of folks that I don’t even really know just because I have emailed them.”

The Facebook for iPhone app is available for download straight from the App Store here.



Tags: Facebook, iPhone, App, Apple, Facebook for iPhone

I Hope you LIKE this blog post! Thank you!

What do YOU have to say about this

Popular News

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.