The Best Facebook Apps for iPad [App List]

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Facebook is yet to release an official application for the iPad, and with its founder Mark Zuckerberg claiming the device was “not mobile,” we’re not likely to see one anytime soon. Zuckerberg wants us to use Facebook in our iPad’s web browser, which is fine for some, but others prefer a dedicated application that brings simple photo and video uploading, better chat support, and a user interface better suited to a touchscreen device.

It’s no wonder, then, that iOS developers have attempted to fill this void, and are slowly started to introduce their own third-party Facebook applications to the App Store. We’ve selected the best apps currently available for getting your Facebook fix on your iPad.

Check them out after the break!

Friended – ($0.99) iPad – Social Networking

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Friended was the first Facebook application native to the iPad, featuring all of the features you’ll require for a great Facebook experience on your iPad. Access your news feed, view photo galleries, notifications, messages, and groups. There also support for chat, and a nifty feature called ‘profile popovers’ – which displays a little popup window when you click on a user’s name and allows you to view their profile without leaving the page you’re currently viewing.

Facely HD – ($0.99) Universal – Social Networking

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Facely is a great application for those that wish to personalize their Facebook experience – with plenty of themes, fonts, and colors with which to customize the app’s user interface. Its feature list includes chat support; notifications for photos, videos, game requests and more; the ability to select a list of ‘favorite’ friends; profile editing and lots more. It also has a really useful feature than enables you to reply to messages without leaving the page you’re currently viewing.

Friendly Plus – ($0.99) iPad – Social Networking

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Friendly Plus is a personal favorite of mine, and the application I choose to use Facebook on my iPad. Its user interface is simplistic and easy to navigate, and while you can’t customize it as much as Facely, you can choose your own color and font. It features support for the iPad 2’s camera, so you can upload photos directly within the application, and you can edit and add effects to your images before showing them off to friends. Friendly includes chat support, a ‘live’ news feed, profile editing, and even the ability to set a secure PIN code lock that’ll stop friends from updating your status while you’re away.

FriendCaster – (Free) iPad – Social Networking

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FriendCaster offers a unique feature called ‘FriendStream mode’, which delivers a live stream of updates from your Facebook news feed in real time, with a really attractive UI. It also offers full screen photo browsing, quick switching between multiple Facebook accounts, PIN code security, news feed searching, and places support with map view. While there’s currently no support for chat and messages, these features are currently being worked on, and because FriendCaster currently does everything so brilliantly we couldn’t leave it out.

Pica HD – ($1.99) iPad – Social Networking

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Pica HD’s iPhone counterpart featured in one of our weekly must-have iOS app roundups when it was released, and the iPad version is even more stylish and creative. Its themes give its user interface a look and feel completely different to what you get with any of the other Facebook apps for iPad. It features support for chat, places, fast photo uploading, and events. A downside to Pica HD is that there’s currently no support for push notifications.

MyPad+ – ($0.99) iPad – Social Networking

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The MyPad+ UI is a little similar to that of the Twitter app for iPad, in that its navigation bar is down the left-hand side, and you can swipe windows from left to right for quick access to profiles, URL links, YouTube videos, and photo albums. You can open multiple profiles and pages and ‘stack’ them on top of one another, which you can then swipe back and forth to view. It’s a really nicely designed app that’s quick and simple to use. Like the others it features customizable color schemes, photo uploading, and chat support.

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