It was reported earlier by the New York Times Facebook had plans to completely overhaul its iPhone app with a ‘blazing fast’ release, set to arrive this summer. Now, Bloomberg further confirms the app is being improved and will be eventually rehauled–by a team of former Apple employees:
This team from Apple has been primarily focused on rebuilding Facebook’s iPhone application, which has been criticized by users for being slow. An initial release could be announced within a couple of months, with another broader overhaul of the iPhone app coming next near, one person said.
The reason the current Facebook iPhone app is slow and buggy is because it is not built with Objective-C, the primary programming language for iOS, rather an HTML5 web wrapper that essentially loads the mobile site. For Facebook addicts, this comes as welcome news.
The report also goes on to note former staffers that worked on Palm’s OS were hired to help build an upcoming Facebook smartphone, which is set to be built by Taiwan’s HTC and set to be released in mid-2013.
Update: Bloomberg follows up their report with details on Facebook hires of former Apple employees:
Former Apple staff hired by Facebook to work on mobile are: Greg Novick, who helped develop the touch-screen user interface; Tim Omernick and Chris Tremblay, who also worked on the device’s software; and Scott Goodson, who helped create the stock-market application, according to people with knowledge of the hires.
