Facebook has made it impossible to use their main website from the iPhone. They have a lovely iPhone version, which iPhone users are now forced to use. Unfortunately, the iPhone version doesn’t do a number of things (groups, for example), so I used to the full version of the site and it worked pretty well.
Facebook’s move is the latest of a growing trend. Users buy iPhones and delight that they are able to use most websites from their phone. Publishers start to notice iPhone users and start rerouting them to mobile versions of their sites. In many cases, the version they show iPhone users is the same lame version designed for use with the mobile browsers on cheap cell phones. In some cases, it’s an iPhone optimized version, but those versions are usually a small subset of the functionality of the main site.
I think Amazon, Google and Digg are doing the best job so far among big sites. They give you the option of choosing to use the main version of the site.
The rest of you, PLEASE STOP. I bought an iPhone because I wanted access to the whole web from my phone. Forcing me into your half-assed mobile version is a step backwards and makes me hate you. I’m sure I am not the only one who feels this way.
Update: Apparently if you enter the full URL to your regular facebook homepage, like http://myuniversity.facebook.co/home.php you can get into the full version.
Facebook’s new iphone optimized site has been getting much deserved attention since it went public last week, but it has a few glaring omissions, like the inability to add photos. This is in large part due to the fact that the iPhone can’t upload images. However it can e-mail them.
A number of blogs have been linking to a new 3rd party service called PxPipe that lets you e-mail photos and have them posted to Facebook, but they are missing the fact that you don’t need a 3rd party service to do it. You can e-mail your photos directly to photos@facebook.com, or, if you want them to be part of a note, you can e-mail them to notes@facebook.com.
The first time you try, you’ll have to acknowledge an e-mail confirmation that Facebook sends back to you before they are posted. To be honest, I had a little trouble with this, and I’m not sure exactly why it started working. I’m not sure if they changed the service so it would work with e-mail addresses beside the e-mail to SMS gateway addresses most carriers assign mobile phones, or if it was the fact that I dug around in their help and followed the instructions listed under “I sent in some photos, but I never received a confirmation code. What gives?” in the “Mobile Help: Troubleshooting” section. If you give it a try, please leave a comment and let us all know what ultimately worked for you.
For more information, you can see Facebook’s mobile uploads page.
Update 9/8/07: This broke for me a few days ago, and I haven’t been able to get it working again. It’s still working for a friend who followed my instructions though. Very annoying.
Update 10/18/07: I finally got it working again. The trick, I think, was to make sure that the photos were being sent from the same e-mail address Facebook has on file for my Facebook account.
A blogger named Donna Bogatin raises an interesting point in pointing to an iPod related poll on Facebook, but I don’t agree with her strongly negative take.
She points out that only 7% of respondents said yes. While 63% said no, with the rest being some form of undecided.
This actually looks like great news for Apple. The 7% of yes repondents represent ~140,000 of Facebook’s 20M users. At $500 a pop, that’s 70M in revenue for Apple (perhaps more if they get a kickback from AT&T, something that could be as much as 50% of the cost of service). That 7% also represents people who are apparently ready to buy soon. That’s a significantly higher penetration rate than the 1% Apple is shooting for in the overall mobile phone market (at least for the time being).
Just as interesting, most of the undecideds, which make up 30% of the respondants, also look like likely future buyers. 9% want a choice of carriers beyond AT&T, which will probably come in the next year or two. 20% want a lower price, which is also sure to come. Only 1% are waiting to see what their friends do.
It’s actually hard to understand the point of her post. The headline suggests it’s about the poll results. But most of the text is a complaint about polling methodologies. I’m not going to argue the latter. The poll only reached a self-selected ~1000 out of the 20M or so Facebook users, so you have to be careful about putting to much state in the results. Still, I think they are interesting.
Elsewhere:
