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Facebook improves iOS SDK with enhanced APIs and better mobile analytics

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 23, 2018

Mark Zuckerberg's social networking company last July released a software development kit (SDK) for programmers to make it easier to write apps that take full advantage of Apple’s deep Facebook integration in iOS 6. It's been updated a few times since and today Facebook announced that it is enhancing the SDK with better APIs and other improvements. This update also includes bug fixes that improve stability, is backwards compatible and can be downloaded now direct from Facebook...

Facebook launches free or discounted Messenger access in 14 countries

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 25, 2013

Facebook on Sunday announced a new promotion that will allow users of Messenger for iOS and Android to exchange instant messages for free or at heavily discounted data rates in select international markets. Partnering with more than eighteen operators in fourteen international markets, the social networking giant said Facebook for Every Phone, basically a bare-bone service for feature phones that is now optimized for chat, is also included in this promotion.

The move arrives just after the company flipped the switch on the in-app VoIP calling feature in its mobile client for iOS and Android devices. Facebook first rolled out VoIP calling in Canada earlier this year, and some parts of the US, via the Messenger app...

Facebook app updated with new button design and free in-app calling

Cody Lee ∙ February 22, 2013

Facebook just posted a nice little update for its official iOS app, bringing it to version 5.5. This is the app's third update in as many months, as the social network continues to improve its mobile experience.

The change log for today's release includes a new button design, which makes it easier to comment on, like and share stories from your News Feed, and support for Facebook's free in-app calling feature...

How Eastern European attackers hacked Apple

Ed Sutherland ∙ February 20, 2013

Investigators now believe a group of sophisticated Eastern European criminal hackers are responsible for a cyberattack on Apple and other U.S. technology and media firms. Until today, those probing the computer break-ins thought China was behind the electronic assaults. In Apple's case, malware placed on an iPhone developer website may have been used to 'bait' visitors, according to one report Wednesday.

According to Bloomberg, which anonymously cited people close to law enforcement, malware which other victims described as "sophisticated," was placed on the popular developer forum to potentially gain access to data stored on corporate computers...

‘Enable Copy text in Facebook’ makes using the official Facebook app less frustrating

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated February 25, 2013

Have you ever had to jump through hoops to log into a desktop website because an app won't let you copy the text on your phone? This should never happen, but for some unfathomable reason, major services like Facebook do not allow for copying text in-app (the Facebook app currently allows users to copy text from messages and comments, but not from status updates or posts).

Luckily you can get rid of the annoyance, even if Facebook won't fix the issue themselves. 'Enable Copy text in Facebook' is a tweak that allows jailbroken iOS devices to capture the text directly from Facebook posts themselves...

Facebook now sends 180 million clicks to Apple and Google app stores

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 12, 2013

The social network Facebook has become such a behemoth in that space that it's now sending an astounding 180 million clicks to Apple's App Store marketplace and Google's Play Store for Android software. That's one of the nuggets from a speech Dan Rose, Facebook VP of partnerships gave at The Wall Street Journal-sponsored D: Dive Into Media.

He also touched on Facebook's mobile strategy and the social network's future prospects as it competes for our time with other popular mobile services...

Facebook iOS app gains in-app voice and video recording capabilities

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 28, 2013

Facebook's universal iOS client for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini has just been updated with the useful ability to share your favorite places using the improved Nearby tab. More important than that, you can now record a voice or video message right in the app and send it to your friends. The ability to share audio snippets first appeared in an update to Facebook's Messenger app on January 3, 2012 so having it now in-app via the official client is a welcome addition...

Instagram says it has 90M monthly active users, releases other stats

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 17, 2013

Facebook-owned photo sharing service Instagram today for the first time revealed some hard numbers on its performance and user base. Instagram has passed 90 million monthly active users, which is a huge number for any casual photo sharing service, no matter how you look at it. The company also confirmed that it is serving 40 million photographs each day, averaging to a little more than two photos per user shared each day. Wondering about how many likes and comments people post each day?

Facebook begins rolling out free Messenger VoIP feature to the US

Cody Lee ∙ January 16, 2013

Earlier this month, we told you that Facebook had added a free VoIP calling feature to its Messenger app in Canada. It was clearly a test, to ensure that the social network's servers could handle the added bandwidth. And apparently the tests went well.

Today, many users, including us, have noticed that Facebook has quietly started rolling out the VoIP feature to the US version of its Messenger app. It comes by way of a new 'Free Call' button, which will allow you to telephone your FB contacts for free...

Facebook to take on Google with new search tool

Cody Lee ∙ January 15, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSji6Y66aKo

Facebook has just kicked off its highly anticipated "come and see what we’re building" event, and it's first big announcement of the day is its new search tool. It's not necessarily a web search per se, but a graph search, capable of crawling all of Facebook's data.

It will help you answer questions like: what are some things my friends like, what kind of music are they listening to, what about places my friends have been to or liked and much more more. We have more details on Facebook's new search tool after the fold...

How to get Facebook Messenger working on a jailbroken iPad

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Facebook a week ago issued invites for a major news conference due tomorrow to “come and see what we're building”. One source claims the iPad version of the popular Messenger client will be on tap as the social networking giant's last-minute "one more thing" surprise.

What you may not have known is that the current iPhone build of Messenger already has the iPad interface and code in place. And if you happen to have your device jailbroken (as most readers who frequent iDB do), you may want to unlock Messenger for iPad right now. Just follow this simple guide and Jeff's easy to follow video instructions, embedded right past the break...

Facebook ‘totally’ ready to launch Messenger for iPad on Tuesday

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 8, 2016

You may have heard that Facebook has issued invites for a media event due this coming Tuesday to “come and see what [they're] building”. People in the know claim the news conference is a pretty big deal as Facebook could announce a brand new mobile operating system, even a so-called Facebook Phone of some sort. And now, another source has stepped forward with knowledge that the social networking giant will also launch an iPad version of its mobile Messenger app, which in a recent update has gained VoIP capabilities...