Facebook mobile still sucks

The x.facebook.com link that you get whenever you try to hit facebook from a mobile phone is lacking. Even if you type in m.facebook.com you get redirected to x.facebook.com. I know why. It just pisses me off that I don't have a choice really.

The x.facebook.com link is lacking because you do not have access to the comments on the news feed. It turns out I rely on these links heavily. Without them, the facebook experience is next to worthless. The whole point behind web 2.0, which facebook is a part, is that users put up content and other users comment or add to that content. This cause and exponential growth in content. You could not just go to m.facebook.com which had the count of comments and aloud you to go check them out if you felt like it. You had to go through the x.facebook.com link first. You had the choice of hitting the full facebook.com page, but that was painfully slow and more than a bit clunky in the G1's web interface.

My satisfaction with my phone was dropping by the day due to the crappy facebook environment. I had no idea this was happening. That is, until I found the facebook app for Android.

There was a gaping hole for the longest time of a facebook app for the G1. I heard people complain about the facebook app for the iPhone. I tried to tell people that the iPhone app was better than the web interface. No one cared. Those iPhone snobs think their output isn't garbage.

The reason why the x.facebook.com page exists is because of database queries. When you hit the news page on facebook, that is a single query that has several tables and a complex lookup to get the information that is relevant to you from your friends. It is run through a filter to weed out what and whom you have blocked. Then it is rendered and sent to your phone. This on it's own is a pretty good hit for a page with a user base of a quarter billion world wide.

Now, add comments on the news feed. You have just added another dimension to the database lookup. it is all in one query, but for each news item from one of your friends an additional lookup has to be performed to a) count the comments and b) retrieve and display the comments. This is why the m.facebook page and even the Android app still do not display each comment. You must click through to get to them. At least they are only a click away.

The separate app helps cut down on queries by keeping data on the device between queries and only adding information as needed. The app also eliminates much of the rendering process.

The app method for facebook works for facebook and kind of for me. I wish I had the full web page that didn't break in my phone. Still, not every web page needs to come up with a specific app for their functionality. This seems to be a trend. I do not like this trend.  Most of the media sites have an app. Most of the news sites are coming out with an app. Banks are coming out with their one apps. This is bad. This means every po-dunk web site feels the interface for their data is not satisfied by the web interface of a phone. This means a million apps all being supported by a million different developers. This means confusion, apposing interfaces, propagated bugs, phones out of storage because the user wants to hit fifteen different web pages daily.

In Android, I cannot even figure out how to sort the bookmarks in the browser. It seems like the Android developers have abandon the phone interface and devoted every possible resource to the netbook interface. That's great for Google or Android or netbook sellers, but I am pissed at the responsible parties for leaving me to suffer with a contracted phone. I cannot upgrade or sidegrade for over a year.

Still needs a spell check.