Facebook on the Palm Pre is Unofficially Getting Better

thout a doubt, I think the iPhone is now the “Facebook phone,” courtesy of the stellar new Facebook application. It’s so good that some Facebookers I’ve contacted are actually considering an iPhone purchase. I’m wondering if this signals the start of a new trend — “killer” apps might actually affect consumer handset purchases in the future. But the awesomeness of Facebook 3.0 for iPhone doesn’t mean my Palm Pre is completely left in the cold. I’ve been watching the development of FriendsFlow over the past weeks. It’s a homebrew application that’s starting to rival the semi-lame http://x.facebook.com web page that the Pre works with.

I wouldn’t say that FriendsFlow is a fully functional Facebook client, nor a serious competitor to the iPhone’s new version — not by a long shot. But it shows promise. There’s a configurable interval for refreshes, so you don’t need to reload for updates all the time. And it leverages the Palm Pre’s native notification system. I don’t see a way to view photos, see events or post more than comments or likes to a news feed, so there’s plenty of work yet to be done.

While it matures, I’ve got it installed, and I keep upgrading as often as updates become available. For the news feed alone, I’ve actually been running it all the time while the Pre sits on the Touchstone charger — makes for a nice little way to keep up with my friends.