Friend Stream on HTC EVO 3D rescues me from official Facebook app [Updated]
The official Facebook app has been updated to version 1.6.0, and along with that comes Pages, the ability to upload videos, and "News Feed improvements." Now, if by "improvements" they mean "constantly refreshing to the point where it's impossible to read updates, along with battery-draining syncing problems," then we have a winner!
In all seriousness, though, the app has become so unusable on my HTC EVO 3D that I've been forced to temporarily uninstall it – and that is huge coming from someone as addicted to Facebook as me.
What I was most worried about, however, was that this could somehow be an EVO 3D-specific issue of Gingerbread/Sense 3.0 incompatibility. Luckily, after a little digging through the recent comments in the Android Market, I discovered that this is actually widespread among users on a multitude of different devices. (Phew! It's not just us!)
So while I suffer through the hours (or days) until Facebook fixes this problem, I thought this might be a good opportunity to become a bit more intimate with Friend Stream, and I have to admit: HTC has a serious contender here!
Here are just some of the improvements I've noticed in the Sense 3.0 Friend Stream over the original EVO:
- The ability to view Facebook notifications.
- The ability to view your friends' check-ins, as well as checking in to places yourself.
- A new option called "Lists," which seems to be some kind of variation on the normal News Feed.
- Better Facebook integration in the phone dialer, including the ability to read full status updates when calling or receiving calls from Facebook friends (previously, longer status updates were cut off).
- Better Facebook integration in the People app, including the ability to view your friends' most recent posts without actually visiting their Facebook profiles.
- More options in the "Accounts & sync" menu, including the option to specify update frequency.
- The option to include Facebook updates from Friend Stream instead of the weather on the HTC flip clock widget.
- The ability to add Facebook updates from Friend Stream to your lock screen.
The only aspect I do not like is that status updates composed in Friend Stream are still restricted to only 140 characters, which is most likely due to Friend Stream's tight integration with Twitter.
Have you noticed any additional enhancements to Friend Stream on the EVO 3D? Or perhaps more importantly, what will you be using as your Facebook replacement until the official app is fixed?
Update: As pointed out in the comments, clearing the app's data will fix the problem (Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Facebook > Clear data). This does not not seem like a good permanent solution, however, so hopefully Facebook will release an official fix soon.
