Friended - Facebook for iPad Review

In the absence of a first-party Facebook client for the iPad, a number of worthy alternatives have sprung up to fill the void. Given the sheer number of social networking options in the App Store, we were initially skeptical that developers could continue to improve on a formula that seems fairly entrenched. Napkin Studios’ Friended for iPad, while not without its problems, manages to do just that.

On a surface level, Friended provides all the functionality we have come to expect from a Facebook client: the ability to peruse the live feed, quickly peer in to the lives of friends, and chat with contacts. Where this app distinguishes itself, however, is in its elegant interface. The center of the screen contains the familiar main feed, but allows the user to filter the displayed information. Say you want to kill some time at work by checking out the links your friends have posted during the day - filter accordingly. If you know that a bunch of friends recently posted pics from last night’s party, but you don’t want to wade through the full feed to find them, tell Friended to only display photos.

Filtering is quick, effortless, and accurate. In fact, we found the touch responsiveness and data retrieval speeds to be much faster in this app than in Friendly, the genre leader.

Additionally, Friended makes excellent use of the iPad’s generous screen real estate to ensure that you never have to sift through multiple button taps or menus to get at the information you want. A mosaic view of your friends on the right side of the screen displays pictures of your buddies who have recently updated their statuses or uploaded new photographs. Finally, a small pane on the bottom-right corner of the screen tells you which friends are online and provides access to the chat window.

Other features, such as the messages and notifications, are accessible with a single tap, via their familiar icons near the top of the screen. Again, we found that their respective load times were speedy, and the content refreshed accurately and reliably. This is a far cry from the first-party iPhone app, which often incorrectly updates (or forgets) notifications, and inconsistently refreshes the contents of the inbox.

Unfortunately, Friended’s seeming UI perfection is marred by several nagging problems. Chief among them is the unreliability of the chat function. In our experience, chatting with a friend occasionally caused the app to crash, and sometimes conversations did not update properly. This was not a consistent problem, but it was an annoying one. On the subject of crashes, we encountered some limited app instability, especially on fresh loads. Restarting the iPad seemed to eliminate the problem. Finally, unlike Friendly, Friended does not allow you view pictures in fullscreen mode. While this is not a deal breaker, it still seems like a silly omission.

While the aforementioned problems keep Friended from receiving our highest marks, we were pleasantly surprised to find that a developer such as Napkin Studios can find ways to innovate in a genre that seems to have a been-there-done-that attitude. Friended manages to distinguish itself from the pack, and we urge you to give it your consideration.