When it was first unveiled at CES 2009, one of the things I really liked about the Palm Pre was its integrated Facebook functionality. Instead of merely adding contacts to your phone manually, you had the option of subscribing to their Facebook contact details, which would automatically merge their phone numbers, email addresses and profile pictures into your local address book.
To me, it represented a much welcome paradigm shift in the way contacts are handled: instead of entering contact details manually, you subscribe to them and have them automatically updated on your handset.
So I’m delighted to see that the Pre’s approach to Facebook / Address Book integration looks like it will be heading to iPhone OS 4.0 too, at least if this rogue PLIST file in the SDK is anything to go by.
Only time will tell if it’s a feature that ships with the upcoming iPhone 4G, and Apple won’t offer the feature unless they can do it according to their own standards of excellence, but I hope this is the first blush of a radical change to the way iPhone contacts are handled. I never want to have to manually change a phone number or an email address for a friend again.
