What's Inside Facebook's iPad App?

Social networking giant Facebook is working on an iPad app and is expected to release it in the coming weeks, so goes the latest musing of the rumor mill. iPad and Facebook fans could take this for another reason to buy iPad 2!

Facebook released its official app for iPhone immediately after the launch of Apple's App store in 2008, but a year after the release of iPad , there has been no official app from Facebook for the tablet device.

But, the answer from Facebook will come soon. California-based Facebook has been reportedly working on a free iPad app for more than a year and is in the final stages of testing, the New York Times reported citing sources familiar with the plans.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, is said to have invested heavily in the project and is personally overseeing the development apart from fine tuning the unique and advanced features of the app. Designers of the app are working hard to make the user experience compelling and sticky.

It is speculated that the upcoming Facebook application will address several complaints from critics, who were saying that Facebook's web interface is not optimized for tablets such as iPad or any other touch screen interface.

Currently, people have been widely using third-party apps such as My Pad, iFace and Friendly for accessing Facebook on tablet devices.

Facebook's iPad app is rumored to sport a smooth design and its touch screen interface has been especially tailor-made for iPad like devices. The app will have a newly designed Facebook Chat and Facebook Groups, making it easy for the iPad users to use those features on their tablet device, the report said.

In addition, the app is expected to offer features a step ahead of normal Facebook, mainly in its photo and video sharing segment. The Facebook's iPad app lets users shoot, upload and share the photos and videos directly from the iPad's built-in cameras and that too in full resolution and full-screen images.

No wonder, the new app could be a money-spinning platform for both Apple as well as Facebook. Apple can use it as another reason to buy its iPad 2 device and prevent users to go to competitors ecosystem such as Google's Android.

Why Facebook?

The below statistics will say why Apple should encourage a Facebook app on its iPad 2.

According to Facebook, there are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

People use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users. There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products.

Facebook has more than 500 million active users and 50 percent of them log on to Facebook in any given day. Average user has 130 friends and people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

Why Apple?

For Facebook, there will not be a better partner than Apple to promote its tablet app and an ecosystem as integrated as Apple.

Apple has sold more than 25 million iPads since its launch in 2010 and is the hot selling gadget among youngsters. Meanwhile, iPad is also expanding its presence in the enterprise space. Apple recently launched iOS 5.

Rumors were abuzz that Apple plans to help Facebook promote the new application by featuring it prominently in the App Store.