Facebook has always been optimised for desktop computers – it wasn’t until after the company went public that it began to focus on its mobile app. The offi cial Facebook app can be summed up in three simple words: ugly, slow and clunky. It seems a lot of the Android brotherhood feels the same way, as a slew of third-party apps have been developed for browsing Facebook. App developer Abewy is the latest developer that looks to rectify Facebook’s shortcomings with an app of its own. Klyph for Facebook can be best described as Google+ Lite. It looks and acts like the Google+ app. This excellent app lets you browse Facebook without dealing with the sub-par official app.
The interface is smooth, sleek and easy to use. Each action is preceded by a smooth fading sequence. It’s optimised for your Android device to give you the best possible Facebook experience, whether you’re using a tablet or mobile device. You won’t need to deal with Facebook’s annoying ads and suggested apps because the app is almost ad free, except for some at the bottom (although you can upgrade to the pro version to go completely ad free).
As always, there’s a privacy concern when using third-party apps like Klyph. Similar to when you give permission to an app on Facebook, whether it’s Farmville or Twitter, you’ll have to give Klyph permission to access all your personal information. If you’re comfortable with that you shouldn’t have a problem, but it’s something to consider since Facebook stores a lot of your personal information.
Klyph offers users the same core functionality that the offi cial Facebook app delivers. You can update your status, post on your mate’s timeline and upload photos and videos. The app is easy to learn and convenient to use; swipe to the left to browse the different features of Facebook or swipe to the right to see your notifi cations. Klyph is fully customisable by offering a host of aesthetically pleasing themes.
The app does have some fl aws. Chat currently isn’t supported, but the app developers promise they are working hard to include it in a subsequent update. Also, due to Facebook’s limitations on third-party apps, a host of features are not available, including liking a post, tagging a status, commenting with “@”, and sharing statuses, photos and videos to your mate’s timeline.
Although the app offers the same core features as the offi cial app, it does have some kinks to work out. The app doesn’t do the best job of giving you up-to-the-second status updates. While browsing our newsfeed we found the same posts from friends repeating over and over again. Also, notifi cations weren’t pushed to us. We had to refresh the app to see new notifi cations. The app is in its early stages, so we’re sure the developers will work out its fl aws. It will be nice to see a more polished version released with all the bugs fi xed.
