Over the weekend, Facebook launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and iPod Touch at SXSW. Developers area already taking advantage of Facebook Platform APIs to add social features to many iPhone applications.
“Facebook Connect for the iPhone provides the first live social experience for iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as users can now connect with their Facebook friends to play games (whether their friends are at home on a computer, or on their iPhone), and share restaurant reviews on the go, location-based status updates, and more,” a Facebook spokesperson tells Murdok.
Users can download any app featuring Facebook Connect and log in with their Facebook account to get access to their Facebook friends. “For instance, you can use Facebook Connect with the Urban Spoon application,” explains Joe Hewitt on the Facebook Blog. “Once connected, you can see which restaurants your friends have reviewed on the iPhone as you are walking to dinner and share your thoughts afterwards.”
“With the game, ‘Who Has the Biggest Brain’ by Playfish, you can connect with Facebook and try to beat your friends? scores, whether they are on their iPhone or their computer,” adds Hewitt with another example.
Gareth Davis at the Facebook Devleoper blog adds that developers can take advantage of the following benefits:
– Making API calls so your app can access users’ profiles and share information on Facebook.
– Publishing to Facebook via Feed forms.
– Asking users for extended permissions, like offline access, so you can still interact with their data when they’re offline.
For more info on Facebook Connect for the iPhone and iPod Touch, check out this video:
How To: Implement Facebook Connect on the iPhone in 5 minutes from Cat Lee on Vimeo
