Facebook settles with Apple to launch Ipad app

PRIVACY SHREDDING SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook has finally come to terms with Apple and launched an Ipad application.

Facebook had been trying to launch an Ipad application for months, however it has been mired in negotiations with Apple due the fact that you can load apps and buy content through the social network, meaning it competes with Apple's Itunes. Now Facebook has finally managed to sort out its differences and comply with most of Apple's demands to launch an Ipad app.

Facebook's Ipad app essentially uses the extended screen space to display more photographs and make navigation through the social network a two-paned affair, much like using the IOS native email client. Facebook said its apps and games can be played in full-screen mode, with high definition video being recorded and streamed to Airplay devices.

On Facebook's developer blog the social networker banged on about how its "mobile platform" will bring "social app discovery to mobile" and that it can provide "richer social experiences on mobile devices", though presumably not richer than actually meeting people.

Developers of Facebook applications will be keen to learn that through authenticated referrals, Facebook users who click through to an app will stay connected to Facebook. The firm has also brought Facebook Credits to mobile web apps. However, since it grates against Apple's Itunes, it won't work on web apps running on the Facebook's Iphone and Ipad application. It seems that there are some things that not even Mark Zuckerberg can make Apple do.

Nonetheless, with Facebook updating its IOS app with new features, it leaves the firm's Android app some way behind in terms of features and specific versions for Android 3.0 Honeycomb. µ