The big Facebook app split

First there was the Facebook iPhone app, and lets be honest it isn’t the greatest feat into application engineering.

It is clunky, it crashes, it forgets things or shows you the wrong things and is generally not very good.

So, Facebook decide to release another app – this one to hold your messages, but the main Facebook app also holds your messages.

Then there was a Pages manager, if like me you run a number of Facebook Pages, this was actually pretty useful as you now get notifications for pages and not just personal stuff – but it isn’t great.

Now, despite spending a Dr Evil amount of money on Instagram, they have released an Instagram clone – but worse.

What I don’t get is why the split, I’ve actually just put them all in one folder on my iPhone and my less tech savvy wife hasn’t bothered with them at all.

Why not just upgrade the ‘share a photo’ function of Facebook to include the filters and other functions of the Facebook Camera app – that way people would have been more forgiving of it being a bit of a damp squib compared to Instagram.

Then, add in Facebook sign in to Instagram, add the Page Manager functionality to the main app and forget messenger completely – it’s piontless.

Why put effort into creating half a dozen apps when the main one, the place most people hang out on their phones, could be SO much better?

The only reason I can think of is advertising – by having multiple, simpler interfaces offering one function of the many Facebook provides (and what’s next an app for Facebook games?), they can more easily slip in adverts, upsell other functions and generally cash in on you.

Yes the main app has the majority of users, but it is also a pretty cluttered interface and outside the main stream isn’t very advert friendly.

Having a Camera app lets Facebook sell extra filters – using Facebook credits of course (probably just for Android though because of iTunes in App purchase restrictions).

Having a possible Games app lets you buy extras with Facebook credits and carry advertising under Facebook.

And having a message app – well that’s just pointless.