Users uncover Facebook for iPad hidden in iPhone app

It was right under their noses all along.

Users of Apple Inc.’s popular iPad tablet computers need not look far for an app that allows them to access social networking site Facebook—it turns out, the app is hidden right beneath them, if they care long enough to look.

Tech site TechCrunch reported on Monday that the code for the much-awaited Facebook iPad app is “hidden” in the Facebook app for Apple’s iPhone.

According to the site, much of the app is written in HTML5, a new Web code also used by Facebook in its Web application.

TechCrunch said this was made possible due to a seemingly tiny update Facebook pushed to its iPhone app—version 3.4.4—which initially carried minor cosmetic and bug fixes.

But TechCrunch said it turns out that the app “is carrying a payload of much greater importance than some bug fixes.”

It said the navigation system is “great” as it uses a left-side menu system that can be accessed by the touch of a button or the flick of the iPad screen.

TechCrunch said the app also makes great use of the pop-overs (overlay menus) found in other iPad apps.

“When you flip the iPad horizontally, the list of your online friends appears and you can chat with them as you do other things on Facebook. The photo-viewer aspect looks great — similar to the iPad’s own native Photos app. Places exists with a nice big map to show you all your friends around you. Etc,” it said.

TechCrunch also reported that a source who had previously seen the Facebook iPad app confirmed that it is indeed the app the social networking giant is planning to launch soon.

But to be able to access the code that runs the iPad application, TechCrunch said users would have to do “some things you’re technically not supposed to do to your iPad,” referring to jailbreaking the device, or “cracking” the iPad in order to run unauthorized 3rd-party applications.

News site Computerworld, however, reported that as early as 1 PM in the US (or late evening in Manila), access to the hidden application has already been blocked by Facebook.

“It appears that Facebook has disabled logins through the ‘iPad’ version,” tweeted Marvin Bernal, a Canada-based computer engineering student who discovered how to unlock the hidden application. — JMT/RSJ, GMA News

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Complaints mount over Google+ account deletions

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An issue that had simmered for several weeks boiled over this weekend, as Google apparently accelerated deletions of Google+ accounts over the site`s requirement that members use their real names.

Google+ members started complaining about this situation about a week after Google launched the social networking site in late June, and over the past three weeks, various Google officials have addressed the issue.

For example, on July 11, Google+ Community Manager Natalie Villalobos tackled the complaints in the site`s official discussion forum, reiterating the policy and explaining the process for appealing a deletion.

Still, the gripes have continued flowing into the official Google+ discussion board and in other forums like Twitter and personal blogs, reaching a crescendo this weekend when Google zapped the accounts of some high-profile users, as ZDNet blogger Violet Blue reported.

The complaints fall into two categories. There is one group of affected users who claim they`re using their real names, and apparently got their Google+ account deleted because they have unconventional names or their names contain foreign-language characters or letters.

Then there is another camp of people who want to use a pseudonym because they don`t want to reveal their real name for privacy reasons.

Asked for comment, a Google spokeswoman said via e-mail that Google Profiles are designed to be public Web pages whose purpose is to “help connect and find real people in the real world.”

“By providing your common name, you will be assisting all people you know — friends, family members, classmates, co-workers, and other acquaintances — in finding and creating a connection with the right person online,” she wrote.

The controversy echoes a concurrent one with public figures and companies that have set up Google+ business profiles, which currently are forbidden and which Google is also deleting. Google hopes to allow business profiles at some point in the coming months.

There are currently about 20 million Google+ members. The service is in a limited beta trial and members can only join if they are invited by Google or by existing members.

Google+ is one of the company`s most important projects. After a series of misfires in the social networking space, Google has high hopes that Google+ will finally let the company give Facebook a run for its money.

Google maintains that Google+`s content sharing features and privacy settings are better and easier to use than Facebook`s, and that this will prompt a massive defection of Facebook users.

For now, Facebook remains by far the most popular social networking site in the world with 750 million members and counting.

Courtesy: Computer World

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