Not a fan of the official Facebook for iPhone app, desperate for an alternative, but still need to get notifications? Join the club. I’ve never been a fan. Their cryptic “bug fix” updates never seem to improve anything and notifications are always so finicky. More often than not, I open my Facebook app to find [...]Daily Tip: How to ditch the Facebook for iPhone app (and still get notifications) is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Not a fan of the official Facebook for iPhone app, desperate for an alternative, but still need to get notifications? Join the club. I’ve never been a fan. Their cryptic “bug fix” updates never seem to improve anything and notifications are always so finicky. More often than not, I open my Facebook app to find several notifications that were never pushed to my iPhone. On top of that, the timeline can be choppy or jump randomly. And the whole “liking comments” just seems to decide on its own whether or not it’s going to work that specific day.
If you feel the same way, hit the jump for some workarounds and alternative solutions to using the Facebook for iPhone application.
There’s a few ways you can ditch the Facebook for iPhone application (and still receive notifications). Unfortunately, unlike Twitter there aren’t any real alternative apps. However, these are the two solutions I found to be the best alternatives to using the official iPhone app.
Facebook web app + Boxcar
This is one thing I use as a fall back method when Facebook for iPhone app decides it doesn’t want to push notifications to my device anymore. It works rather well. You can even route the Boxcar notifications to open the mobile site for Facebook. I actually prefer the layout and functionality of the mobile site. I’m not quite sure why Facebook has not just implemented a lot of this into the native app. They recently integrated liking comments but it hardly ever works or shows up. It always works in the mobile web version.
Simply download Boxcar from the app store, create a login and customize your Facebook notifications how you’d like them. And you can have a different sound other than tri-tone which may be a plus for those of you like me that have tons of friends that use tri-tone. I like my sounds to be unique so I know whether or not my iPhone is going off.
Facebook web app + Facebook native app
Another route is to keep the Facebook native app installed but use the web app. If notifications aren’t a huge issue to you and you just want a more steady user experience, simply keep notifications active but use the mobile site instead. I simply turned off badges and hid the app in a folder. That way, I still get notifications for Facebook but I can choose to use the mobile web version instead.
The only downside to this method is if you open a Facebook notification, it will still bring it up in the native Facebook for iPhone app. I simply tap close and then launch the mobile web version. All the notifications will be right at the top of the web version. Not the best workaround but it’s definitely a more stable user experience than the native app in my opinion.
Do any of you have a better way to use Facebook on your iPhone? Let us know in the comments!
Boxcar – Free
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Daily Tip: How to ditch the Facebook for iPhone app (and still get notifications) is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
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