Facebook Readies iPhone-Inspired Redesign
Facebook was a natural for the iPhone — its interface was already blue and reasonably minimalist. Last year Facebook tweaked its main pages to offer an iPhone-friendly version of the site, and now Facebook is planning to roll out some changes that make the main site look more like the iPhone version.
Facebook has always offered a tidier, more uniform interface (as opposed to the free for all of MySpace’s often garish page customizations) and the new design promises to simplify the interface further.
The changes aren’t live yet, but judging by the screenshots (see above) the new look will be a multi-tab profile page that splits wall posts, personal information and photos into separate tabbed pages — much like the iPhone version of the site.
Also worth noting is that the new Wall tab merges Wall posts with recent photos, posted items, updated status messages, and other new content.
It makes a nice, subtle enhancement for users, but there is one group that probably won’t be happy — Facebook application developers. The new layout dispenses with application list that used to be on everyone’s profile page view and moves it to another tab, which means less immediate visibility for developers.
Of course it was already possible to hide your applications so perhaps the changes won’t matter too much. Still, Facebook users have a habit of revolting when the company makes changes they don’t like, it remains to be seen if the Facebook developer community will do the same.
Here’s a screenshot the Facebook iPhone interface for comparison:
[via TechCrunch]
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