Facebook native Android app now live and twice as fast

We've been hearing talk about the update for a while, and it has finally become a reality. First, we saw that Facebook transitioned its iOS app to native code. Then, Facebook began dogfooding its Android app in house, forcing everyone to understand how bad it was, and promised a native code Android app. Now, Facebook 2.0 is live in the Google Play Store. It's native code, and twice as fast as the old app.

We've tried it, and it really is a slick upgrade. Everything about the app is faster: navigation, scrolling, links, pictures. Everything is fast and smooth, and of course even the app itself launches faster than before. No feature updates with this version, but even so it feels like a new app. We only saw a few hitches and stutters on a Nexus 4.

If you're an ubernerd, Facebook has also posted engineering notes about the update and what the team had to do to make the app perform the way it does. Pretty interesting stuff about making garbage collection more efficient, writing a custom bus, and putting photos in a native heap. You know, interesting if you're into that sort of stuff. 

If you want to grab the new native Facebook app, just head over to the Google Play Store. 

source: Facebook