It was one of the strangest decisions that Facebook ever made – the total lack of a “share” button on their smartphone apps and mobile website. Ironically, it meant that a site meant to be used for sharing links and posts couldn’t be used for sharing links and posts if you were using a smartphone platform. Whenever I saw a picture or a video on Facebook, via my iPhone, that I wanted to share, I was frustrated because there was simply no way to do it. It was utterly incomprehensible why Facebook would impose these limits on their users.
But yesterday, this wacky state of affairs was finally reversed when a “share” button was finally inserted. Now I could torment my followers at all times of the day and night with cat pictures, bad jokes, and pithy observations about life. I am still totally amazed that it took so long for the penny to drop at Facebook HQ that a share button had to be included. They’re so busy giving us stuff that we don’t want or need (cough….Timeline…cough…) that they’re forgetting the absolute basics of why people use Facebook in the first place. And why did they wait until after the US presidential election to introduce these features? Surely, before the election was the time people wanted to share stuff, when they were rooting for their candidate and all kinds of juicy salacious titbits were coming out?
As well as the share button, another incomprehensible omission was being fixed – in-line tagging. In case you don’t know what that is (I’m pretty sure you do), it’s when you start to type someone’s name in a status message and Facebook auto-completes the name for you and links to that person’s Facebook page. Well, up to now this was only confined to the regular PC site, and again it was utterly frustrating if I wanted to tag someone or credit someone for something. I could only write their name, but as there would be no link to them, it was totally hit-and-miss whether or not they would actually see the message. Now this too has been acknowledged and fixed by Zuckerberg and Co.
Facebook developers seem to be really busy lately adding new features to their mobile apps, as we are seeing a whole slew of new features appearing. You can now send gifts to your contacts, a new look to Facebook Messenger (which seems like a rip-off of Apple iMessage), and a new way to get to your Facebook chat contacts (on iOS). All you have to do is swipe left with your finger to reveal your contact list and see at a glance who is online. What’s more, you can designate anyone you speak to often as a “favorite” and pin their name to the top of the contact list for easy access.
With all of these changes, what still needs to be added to the mobile platforms to make them equal to their PC counterpart? Here’s my wishlist :
Mark’s Wishlist For A Better Facebook Smartphone App
1. A way to delete status updates. On my iPhone, I still can’t delete anything.
2. A way to “highlight” posts on my Facebook page.
3. A way to change my profile photo and header.
4. A way to crop and edit newly uploaded photos.
5. For it to do the housework and make me endless cups of tea.
I’m sure I’ll think of more wishes eventually (I’m a pretty picky kind of guy) but if those were implemented, I would be pretty happy. Or maybe it’s already possible to do one or more of these, and I am being a total doofus? If so, please tell me in the comments how to do them on an iPhone / iPad and I will show my gratitude by telling you one of my bad jokes (they don’t call me Fozzie Bear for nothing).