Facebook coming to BlackBerry PlayBook this month, iPad users shed tear

By on May 2, 2011 at 9:17 AM
Software May 2, 2011

If you’re addicted to your PlayBook and a certain social network, listen up. Research In Motion has announced a new Facebook application for its 7-inch, QNX-based tablet due out in “May.” The new app will allow users to view and add friends and photos, utilize Facebook’s chat feature, and interact with the News Feed. “There are over 30 million users of our Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones app who are staying in touch with their social network while on the go,” said Tom Goguen, RIM’s VP of Collaboration and Social Networking. “Now with Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook we can also offer customers highly engaging social experiences optimized for the PlayBook including the ability to share FaceBook pictures and videos with friends and family on an HDTV.” RIM plans to provide a more in-depth look at the application later this week. The full press release is after the break.

RIM Announces New Facebook App for BlackBerry PlayBook

Waterloo, ON – Following on the success of the Facebook for BlackBerry® smartphones app, Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced Facebook for BlackBerry® PlayBookTM — a new app that delivers popular features of Facebook, optimized for the 7″ high resolution, multi-touch LCD display of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

“There are over 30 million users of our Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones app who are staying in touch with their social network while on the go,” said Tom Goguen, VP, Collaboration and Social Networking at Research In Motion, “Now with Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook we can also offer customers highly engaging social experiences optimized for the PlayBook including the ability to share FaceBook pictures and videos with friends and family on an HDTV.”

Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook offers users a highly engaging experience by integrating popular features and functionality of Facebook including;

• View and add Friends – Users can interact with friends quickly and easily: find friends by scanning the new grid view of their profile pictures; search for and add new friends and manage new friend requests; browse their profiles, photos and videos; view and interact with wall posts; view key information on profiles and pages; and view, comment and ‘like’ photos on profiles and pages.

• Enjoy seamless photo and video viewing – Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook makes it easy to upload photos from the BlackBerry PlayBook Picture Library, tag friends in photos, view comments, tags and likes. The BlackBerry PlayBook can also be connected to an HD TV to display photos and videos at a whole new level in full 1080p HD.

• Connect with friends using Facebook Chat – On the BlackBerry PlayBook screen, users can enjoy side-by-side viewing of online contacts and active conversations. Notifications of new Chat messages are displayed on the Notifications Bar, so users can quickly and easily read and respond to new Chat messages while browsing friends’ profiles, viewing their pictures or reading their status updates.

• View and interact with the News Feed – Users will be able to browse highlights such as photo uploads and status updates and seamlessly view links in the BlackBerry PlayBook browser. They will also be able to “Comment” and “Like” to discuss and show appreciation for friends’ content, as well as publish a status update or upload a photo from the status publisher accessible from their Profile or from within the News Feed.

The Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook application will be showcased this week at BlackBerry World 2011 (www.blackberryworld.com) in Orlando, FL and is expected to be available on BlackBerry App WorldTM in May.

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  • Rob

    The only advantage I see to this app over just bookmarking the website are the notifications. I really wish my iPad had that. At least my iPhone does.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746237253 Porfirio Reyes III

      OK, thank you Captain Obvious.

      • Anonymous

        Says the guy that takes a really cliche picture of himself taking a picture with a DSLR that he probably doesn’t know how to use outside of the “Auto” setting.

        Go hate somewhere else.

      • sirpaul

        With a flash that wasn’t even used…lol.

  • Eric

    I’ve been wondering why, after the iPad has been out over a year, there is no Facebook for iPad. You would think this is an app that really should be available. They assume everyone is just happy with the web?

    • serpentor

      My best guess is that, as he’s already said, Zuckerberg doesn’t see iPad as a mobile device. And it’s a 10″ screen which is practically laptop sized so the regular website works fine.

  • Bringit

    Will have zero effect on sales of the Playbook or the iPad. Zero.

    • Anonymous

      Who cares about sales numbers? Do you have the app or not?

      • Bringit

        You care. The app would not make me purchase the PlayFlop. Or the 3 other people who are considering it.

      • Anonymous

        iCare? lol

        Btw, I don’t care either way who buys what product. I do think its funny that people have to list sales numbers as proof that what they purchased is the correct choice. Personal validation ftw!

        (and I bought an iPad 2)

    • Anonymous

      I hate to say it, but I think you might be wrong. I’m willing to wager that there are a number of sad, lonely weirdos out there that will decide to come aboard the tablet ship because of this announcement.

  • Anonymous

    I’m still shocked Facebook hasn’t come out with tablet apps for iOS or Honeycomb 3.0. There are good 3rd party apps available for it, but not the literal Facebook app.

    For a company with an army of coders like Facebook this seems very strange.

    • Josh

      Facebook has always seemed to be anti-tablet in their press confrences. However, they have been making improvements to their Android app to make it look decent and be compatible on Honeycomb

      • Anonymous

        Strange considering the current trend.

    • Anonymous

      Same here. I use Friendly on my ipad because tablet-friendly or not, the Facebook website kinda sucks.

    • Tim Conner

      This app is not created by Facebook. RIM creates their own Facebook apps.

      • Anonymous

        RIM partnered with Adobe to create the Playbook Facebook app.

  • Johnny Wishbone

    +1 for #TeamBlackberry

    • Stupid_bgr

      You forgot to say how many points did #TeamiPad has already compared to #TeamBlackBerry..

  • Anonymous

    Having a Facebook app on the iPad is just like having a Facebook app for your PC, you don’ t need it. If you haven’t seen a playbook or held one before you won’t understand. The playbook is crazy small and the bezel makes the screen look not much bigger than the screen on most smartPhones.

    • Anonymous

      Untrue. iPad and Honeycomb are still just big phones or rather portable toys. A computer has a full keyboard, mouse, etc. that’s easy to control. When everything is touch based in a small product it would make sense to use something designed specifically for it.

      Why open up a browser and login then look at a web page when you can have it be designed for the physical device?

      • Bringit

        uh, yeah. A “full keyboard, mouse, etc. that’s easy to control” is what make something a computer vs. a “big phones or portable toy”. Riiiight.

      • http://twitter.com/CptMurderMarley Mr. Marley Jones

        Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed lol. Why you mad tho?

      • Bringit

        uh, yeah. A “full keyboard, mouse, etc. that’s easy to control” is what make something a computer vs. a “big phones or portable toy”. Riiiight.

  • Anonymous

    tAmpAx mAxiPad will never have Facebook because it is a bleeding failure; it will also never have Flash or a Real FULL web browser; it will never have a Front Facing Camera greater than 0.40 (next upgrade on iPad 3); but, it will always have iTunes and the same ol’ “Hommo” button so, congrats’ if you have a mAxiPad of any kind.

    • Anonymous

      Dude I agreed with you on one thing, the cameras on the iPad suck more than anything that has suck before.

      • El-father

        You like drama don’t you?

      • Eric

        Yeah, the iPad2 is great, but the camera does completely suck.

    • Parrde

      I’m just glad I didn’t wait since the iPad was released To “enjoy the tablet experience”. Now if I can get a real enterprise solution that will allow a USB port I can ditch my laptop on trips. Competition is what makes an industry. +1 for innovation

    • KCRic

      Yeah, I was sitting at Starbucks last night with 4 friends drinking iced coffee when I heard about Osama. I tried to get onto CNN to see some live coverage but alas, I have no flash. So I pulled out my iPhone, still no flash. Pulled out my Mac but Safari sucks so bad I quit. I had to go out into the streets and ask a guy with an Android phone to pull it up for me so I can actually know what’s going on in the world.

      • Johnny Wishbone

        Wow that kinda sucks when you think about it. You have over $1,000 worth of technology and u can’t watch a live news feed of something that we’ve waited almost 10 years for.

      • Anonymous

        Don’t worry, he hasn’t done that and doesn’t even own an iPhone. iPhone owners know that videos on CNN work perfectly w/o flash.

      • Anonymous

        That’s odd because I just loaded up CNN on my iPhone right now and all the videos work perfectly as they use HTML5 like most major web sites these days. But you’d know that if you actually owned an iPhone.

        Can you guys really not find anything else to troll about that you need to invent problems that don’t exist?

      • Anonymous

        Sorry liar most major site don’t use HTML5…. example Facebook, thanks Mark for the big FU to Steve Jobs. Hey Steve move on old man we’ve had enough of your dog and pony shows, making things thinner just isn’t going to cut it…

  • http://profiles.google.com/booboolala2000 Patrick Crumpler

    So, the other tablets get the crappy apps for phones, stretched out on a big screen, so lame. Although my Facebook time has waned anyway. But when I do use it on my XOOM I usually just go to the full site.

    • Anonymous

      Full site also available on the playbook, difference is on the playbook the full site actually works because flash is built in. On iPad it does not work, on Xoom it really doesn’t work either since flash is an afterthought on Xoom.

  • CDD543

    So what–congrats on the big news RIM. What’s next? Press release coming for new version of brick breaker?

    • http://twitter.com/Accessories_4BB Jo

      actually……. new brickbreaker version on playbook rocks! lol
      no joke lol

  • http://twitter.com/imhike London Snoward

    iPad users shed tears??? Sorry, we iPad owners are far from jealous.

    • Anonymous

      you should be, your ipad is a POS that is an iphone but bigger…real value for your money lol

  • http://twitter.com/FrankJL9 Frank lopez

    hahaha..

    Playbook users. shead tears. I can stream hulu, netflix, hbo go, slingbox, crackle, video chat- use 100′s of native applications.

    Shed a tera for what? Ohh yeah that the playbook is a failure and I cant believe people went out and bought it?
    yes I will shed a tear for the dumb souls that wasted money on a tablet that does not even have an email application.

    • Anonymous

      actually it runs my outlook, gmail and hotmail accounts no problem. Just because it isn’t native, doesn’t me it doesn’t come with the PB dummy. Your beloved ipad is nothing more than a large iphone without cell reception…where PB actually differentiates tablet from phone and brings something different to the table. I guess thats why Apple missed projections on the ipad by 4 millioin units last quarter…people are starting to realize that its a useless product because they can do all the ipad does, and more with their phones.

    • Henry

      I am an iPad user and I can say that I don’t even touch the native mail app on the iPad. Gmail’s mobile site through the browser is way better. That being said, I agree with greatness10 that native app does not equal email-less tablet. After using the iPad for a long time, I have to admit that it is on a fundamental level, simply a iPhone with a bigger screen and higher resolution. Whatever disadvantages it may have are innate to iOS, not just iPad device.

  • Stupid_bgr

    Dear BGR, this is what makes the difference between a real journalist from a news blogger; a cheap trick to make a controversial news title. On this particular blog post, you wrote “…, iPad users shed tear.” Seriously, why would iPad users shed tear over measly Facebook app???

    • Tom

      Yeah I know. Its not like anyone uses that site anyway!

  • Anonymous

    It’s funny how this all works. PlayBook beats iPad to a Facebook app, everyone says who cares…
    If the case was that the iPad already had a Facebook app, and PlayBook was just getting it now, everyone would be saying how RIM is late to the game…

    Hypocrites.

    • Anonymous

      Couldnt agree with you more Len1023

    • Anonymous

      sooo true

  • Anonymous

    Hahaha Shed tear, that should bring out the iBoys……

    The real thing they should be shedding a tear over is the fact that their OS sux!!! iOS = Fail! Try again Crapple!! Instead of working on iOS Steve Jobs says “make it thinner my a-hole customers will buy it, bahahaha.”

  • http://twitter.com/melythemac melanie

    I use the Friendly App for iPad…works just fine

  • stranger

    Already have Facebook App on my PB #WINNING

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