Facebook for Android 1.3 released

Facebook for Android has just updated to 1.3. Ok, so it’s not exactly what you’d call a major jump, but for a must-have app that was significantly lagging behind its iPhone counterpart, it’s a big improvement. Maybe that’s something to do with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent move to using an Android himself?

Before you ask, no, there’s still no chat, but there are a number of small changes that make using Facebook for Android a whole lot more comfortable.

Version 1.3 has a souped-up homepage, with several new options.

Facebook for Android 1.3 has made some changes to both notifications and friend requests. You could supposedly deal with notifications from the old homepage, but in truth, it was a feature that never seemed up to scratch. Both notifications and friend requests now appear on the homepage. The features are nicely integrated into the app, so there’s no browser breakout, and pending notifications are cleanly displayed and easy to deal with. It’s a huge improvement.

The events notification is an especially nice feature, dividing events and birthdays up by today, tomorrow, this month and the future. When you look at a category, you’ll see details of these events – or the age of your friends – displayed cleanly and clearly, so you’ll never have an excuse to miss your friends’ big days.

The new homepage is brightened up by a bar of browsable pictures at the end of the page. While it’s hardly a life changing feature, it does make things a little prettier, and for that, we’re not complaining.