Facebook for Android or Facebook for HTC sense. Opinions. - HTC Desire S

THe HTC desire being my first HTC phone I had never used the sense UI or any of its features previously, so had only had experience with the official facebook for android app from the Market.
Ive just set up facebook for htc sense with the friend stream etc and I'm rather impressed by it. Just wondered what your thoughts are on both these apps? here are mine.
Facebook for Android:
Pros
Has the chat function
Official app from facebook so gets updated (eventually) with new features, although still way behind the iphone app apparently.
Cons
Doesnt allow tagging of photos
Doesnt allow you to remove/delete a post/comment or that you have made or un-like something.
Facebook for HTC Sense
Pros
Allows tagging of photos
Allows multiple upload of photos to albums etc..
Integrates extreemely well with the rest of HTC sense UI, and the phone features such as the people app, gallery etc..
Cons
(most of these are things that I am not 100% sure on, so they are more like a question than a statement)
Not sure if the app gets updated when new features come out on facebook, or being as the app is shipped with the phone is it pretty much that what you get now is what it will always be, and no changes, or do HTC release updates for the sense features?
I dont think the check in feature is available with this?
I also dont think this app allowed you to delete a comment/post, althought I havent tried it yet, if it is possible, how is it done? Same with un-like...
What are you guys thoughts on both of these apps? Which do you prefer out of the 2?

I've been facing this same issue for past 24 hours. I needed batch upload for photos. I assumed, oficial fb app should be able to do that. Well, horse hockey. It's not even able to move photos from album to album or delete album. Before I discovered that Fb for sense is able to do that, I uploaded it via email. All in all, fb app from fb lackes many features, some even included in web version for phones (touch).

well you can always choose between the two, you dint have to just use one
persinally i think sense is amazing! (wish i had it on my sgs2)
the android fb is mediocore, so i use it mainly fir chat.
so i use the facebook mobile site mainly! it has the most info on news feed etc.

I personally still use the m.facebook.com website for facebook interaction on the phone. I found the facebook application a little too limited and clunky.
Although didn't know that it could enable FB chat, until I read the posts above...so thanks.
This way I don't get constant Facebook notifications, but get the ones that I have choosen to get through my FB settings as alerts through new emails. I use both Yahoo and Google mail applications.
I have still enabled Facebook for Sense, so that I still get the status updates, birthdays etc which then add value to my users from Google contacts...

take a look at FriendCaster

Related

Facebook apps?

So I am a pretty big facebook buy, i dealt with the crappy official Facebook app but now im REALLY sick of it. The Facebook Touch app is slightly better but the developers that made this app really need to wake up, even look at the iPhones facebook app. Why make the app come with the phone and get people to use it but make it a crappy app. Like almost everything redirecting to the web. Maybe even the people that made the XDA app can make a facebook app that relates to the iPhones. Im sure developers on this site could do a hell of alot better. I would even pay for it.
What do you guys think?
I would be willing to pay $10 for an Android Facebook app that matched the functionality of the iPhone Facebook app.
+1million.
I have no clue who the facebook developer team for the official app is but someone should find out and send them an email lol
Trouble is Facebook themselves made the iPhone app, hence why it is so good. I find Bloo is the best we have so far and with chat coming in the next version and a widget soon, it's already better than the 'official' android offering
Wait so the Official facebook app (the one that came on the phone) isn't made by facebook themselves?
however, i like the offical facebook app more, but it shows a photo in mobile facebook instead of showing in it's own apps ... v. sad
Yeah thats what i mean, and on the touch facebook site it doesnm't show picture comments for some reason too. This crap needs to be fixed lol

Facebook

Hey there,
I have decided that I truly despise the native windows mobile facebook app. Is there any other (preferably free) ones that are good? I do think the current iphone one is quite good and easy to use, is there anyway to use that on the HD2? The WinMo one is just a pain in the arse to be honest.
Thanks
xx
I just use the touch site, works well, better than the native app.
the touch site lots of times doesnt work for sending messages it doesnt recognize when i type into the box
Hi all,
I've tried the facebook mobile site, touch site, facebook lite and market place app and they all have bad points. The worst is not all your friends status updates show. I tend to use the full site on my HD2 internet browser. Saves loads of problems. Will probably keep on using it till we get a good facebook app that is similar to the iphone app
can't really agree that the iphone facebook app is all that great though...
privacy issues is one thing, where syncing your contact with the iphone facebook app allows facebook the right to own every contact information in your iphone!
and their syncing system allows strangers on facebook to be synced to your iphone contacts... perhaps they synced it with contact information they got from other iphone users, based on phone no.s and etc, but ignoring country and area codes, which ends up syncing your iphone contact to a stranger in facebook, because they have the same phone no. (excluding country code)... that alone is scary enuf...
at least i'm happy with HD2's manila facebook integration, a little manual, but safer, and the album viewing is just smooth, with auto update of the avatar on the phone...
the app is not that impressive them, i have to admit... but iphone's privacy violation just gives me the jitters...

[Q] Accounts & Sync - Facebook has 2 profiles - FB and FB for HTC Sense...

Loving my new HTC Inspire
In "Accounts & Sync", Facebook has 2 profiles set up: Facebook and Facebook for HTC Sense.
What is the difference? Should I remove one or the other?
At first, I was linking all of my FB friends and FB for HTC Sense Friends to each other. But I can't imagine this is normal. Or is it?
rxp19 said:
Loving my new HTC Inspire
In "Accounts & Sync", Facebook has 2 profiles set up: Facebook and Facebook for HTC Sense.
What is the difference? Should I remove one or the other?
At first, I was linking all of my FB friends and FB for HTC Sense Friends to each other. But I can't imagine this is normal. Or is it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are using Friendstream and like having a contact's facebook info, including pictures show up in your People application then keep the FB for HTC Sense and remove the other one. If you aren't using that stuff remove FB for HTC Sense and use the regular facebook. Neither one will give you notifications. FB notifications for Android have been broken since day one.
Have your fb notify you by the email you have linked to your phone and all is well.. Keep FB for HTC as this gives you higher quality images for contacts, where regular FB gives u crap quality images.
earhog said:
Have your fb notify you by the email you have linked to your phone and all is well.. Keep FB for HTC as this gives you higher quality images for contacts, where regular FB gives u crap quality images.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The higher images option was my selling point. Thanks! I disabled FB sync. I notice if I completely remove it, it signs me out of the facebook application.
My favorite feature is seeing people's statuses on the "People" application. If that and high quality pictures are from the FB for HTC Sense sync, that's all I need!
Thanks for your input!
also found useful info googling "facebook for htc sense"
gunnyman said:
If you are using Friendstream and like having a contact's facebook info, including pictures show up in your People application then keep the FB for HTC Sense and remove the other one. If you aren't using that stuff remove FB for HTC Sense and use the regular facebook. Neither one will give you notifications. FB notifications for Android have been broken since day one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this, Perfect!
(Sorry to drag up an old thread)
The only benefit I can think of for the normal Facebook app is that you can go directly to one of your contacts FB pages if its linked to their contact.
For me, Facebook for Sense doesn't show me 3 of my contacts(so weird) so I just use the normal Facebook to link to those 3 contacts.
ok how do I get my FB friends pic to them when I text them as of now it just shows a grey person when I text them
If I remember right I removed FB for sense because it stuck a few hundred contacts on my phone that I didn't want. A lot of my FB friends are just people in which I share news with relating to politics, religion and social issues, not people I want to show up in my contacts list on my phone.
Is this a issue for others as well?
yeah that happend to me and all of my fb friends where in my contacts but it happen when I first set up the FB app you can pick sync all or sync with existing contacts.
but i want the fb profiles to my contacts when I text someone even though I may a different name in contacts vs the Fb profile they have.
The standalone Facebook application will do everything Facebook for HTC Sense does except the friend stream (but Facebook has it's own widgets).
Both will sync contacts and can use the Facebook picture as the contact picture.
To hide all those extra contacts you can choose to only sync contacts already in your phone or go to Contacts -> Display Preferences -> Hide anything you don't want.
To use the Facebook picture go to the contact. Make sure the 2 contacts are linked then click on the Facebook picture and choose set as icon.
Also the standalone app gives me notifications they just seem to be slow.
My phone won't let me have both facebook apps synced.
I am running coredroid. I don't know if the OP foresaw these problems or what. It will only let you select one or the other. However, the first time I opened the regular facebook app, it asked me to import my contacts, which I did. To my horror, facebook replicated of all my htc facebook contacts in the people app, so I had two contact cards for each person. Therefore I removed facebook contacts through the facebook app. There is a setting once you are inside the app to remove them. Even though I only have HTC Facebook contacts now, I have two different facebook icons. Some contacts have big, sort of vertical f's, and some have small, sort of diagonal f's. Not sure what these different icons signify.

Noob's question on HTC Sense - Sorry if it seems dumb!

I just got my Sensation after jumping from the "magick Kingdom of Apple (tm)" and an old iPhone 3G.
I'm so pleased with the Sensation, the screen is amazing and so responsive but - since I'm used to Apple's - "My way or the Highway" approach, some of the freedom has me totally confused.
On the 3G there was one mail app - I see I now have GMail and HTC Mail and that's before I go near the Market.
I had a simple contact app but now I'm pushed towards HTC People which is flooding in my facebook contacts and their posts when mostly I just want folks names and numbers to phone or txt them. If I want facebook I'm happy to start a Facebook app, other than that I really can't be ar$ed reading the piles of crap that too many "friends" are putting on.
I read that I will have some things sync'ing via Google "automatically" and the phone keeps pestering me to sign up for an HTC Sense account while online forums are saying don't have a Sense account running as it will eat up your battery...
Maybe if HTC provided a manual with more than 10 miniature pages to start explaining all this!!!!
Can someone please explain in noob friendly English what is the best combination of general apps / syncing to get mail, contacts, SMS and calendar working so that they are automatically backed up but without trying to sync every 10 mins and running the battery down quicker than my car drinks petrol (which is pretty damn fast!). I don't care if its the HTC apps or Google Apps, I just one to be running one mail client, 1 calendar etc and be able to get all that data back should I need to.
I'm not a complete idiot by the way, I ran the 3G JB'd and unlocked for 3 years through every update Apple put out and I am here because I will root and load a custom rom eventually, but I'd like to learn my way about before doing anything too adventurous.
Anyone offer me any advice or point me to a website offering a class in "HTC Sense 101".
Thanks
BelfastLad
I second this question, starting new on a sensation this week and.... somehow my facebook wants to link with my HTC facebook.... wtf? Didn't realize the sense account was wasting my battery... should I disable it?... Basic configuration theory regarding all this Sense stuff would be useful... thanks.
BelfastLad said:
I just got my Sensation after jumping from the "magick Kingdom of Apple (tm)" and an old iPhone 3G.
I'm so pleased with the Sensation, the screen is amazing and so responsive but - since I'm used to Apple's - "My way or the Highway" approach, some of the freedom has me totally confused.
On the 3G there was one mail app - I see I now have GMail and HTC Mail and that's before I go near the Market.
I had a simple contact app but now I'm pushed towards HTC People which is flooding in my facebook contacts and their posts when mostly I just want folks names and numbers to phone or txt them. If I want facebook I'm happy to start a Facebook app, other than that I really can't be ar$ed reading the piles of crap that too many "friends" are putting on.
I read that I will have some things sync'ing via Google "automatically" and the phone keeps pestering me to sign up for an HTC Sense account while online forums are saying don't have a Sense account running as it will eat up your battery...
Maybe if HTC provided a manual with more than 10 miniature pages to start explaining all this!!!!
Can someone please explain in noob friendly English what is the best combination of general apps / syncing to get mail, contacts, SMS and calendar working so that they are automatically backed up but without trying to sync every 10 mins and running the battery down quicker than my car drinks petrol (which is pretty damn fast!). I don't care if its the HTC apps or Google Apps, I just one to be running one mail client, 1 calendar etc and be able to get all that data back should I need to.
I'm not a complete idiot by the way, I ran the 3G JB'd and unlocked for 3 years through every update Apple put out and I am here because I will root and load a custom rom eventually, but I'd like to learn my way about before doing anything too adventurous.
Anyone offer me any advice or point me to a website offering a class in "HTC Sense 101".
Thanks
BelfastLad
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cbutters said:
I second this question, starting new on a sensation this week and.... somehow my facebook wants to link with my HTC facebook.... wtf? Didn't realize the sense account was wasting my battery... should I disable it?... Basic configuration theory regarding all this Sense stuff would be useful... thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gmail is the official google app for Gmail. By default, Gmail will show your google account stuff when you first sign into google account and link it to your phone.
HTC Mail is a mail client that you can configure to show any of your emails. For example, I have my Gmail specifically for my gmail (I could funnel my hotmail and exchange account to my gmail, but I don't want to), and I use my HTC Mail specifically for my Exchange account.
Now, with Facebook. I linked my Facebook account with Facebook for HTC Sense. You don't have to do this, but if you like using Friend Stream instead of the official Android app, do this.
If you go to settings > Accounts & sync > Facebook for HTC Sense, you can sync live feed, calendar, and/or contacts.
I sync my contacts so that my Gmail contacts come up with facebook pictures.
With the official Facebook app, it'll ask you if you want to sync contacts. I choose no because it funnels ALL of your Facebook friends into your contacts account, something I don't like.
If this is all confusing, you can just go to contacts, hit menu, hit view, scroll down to options, and uncheck the Facebook so that they don't show up in your contacts.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you want more info.
Just use the gmail app for email (assuming you only use gmail) go into accounts and sync, add your google account and it will auto sync your mail, contacts and callendar. Dont worry about battery drain gmail uses push email.
Unless you want to use the htc fabeook or friend stream widgets I would avoid facebook for htc sense, just add your facebook account in accounts and sync, it will import your facebook friends into your contacts (if you want), shortly after youll get a notification about matched contacts and you can link your existing contacts with your facebook contacts, so all information (phone, email, address, facebook etc) is under a single contact. This same process can be done using your twitter account.
As for calendar there are several calendar apps on the market, I personally use Jorte calendar, it will sync with your goole calander and has some nice widget options and nice UI.
The only things I have auto syncing on my phone are google, facebook and twitter and weather. Like I said, unless you want to use the htc widgets I would avoid syncing anything "sense" related.
Thanks for the pointers so far
Thanks to the Mod who helpfully moved my thread. I'll watch that more carefully in future.
And to the guys who've posted some good helpful advice, much appreciated.
By this time next week I'm sure I'll be well sorted. The week after I'll probably be getting itchy fingers to get rooting!
Thanks for the help but I'd still echo the 2nd posters comments. A guide to initial set-up and recommended first tweaks would be great if some "expert" could ever find the time to write one.
- Any takers?????
A "quick" guide to HTC Sense
I will try to make this as simple as I can. Feel free to fill in the gaps if I miss something.
Initial Setup
It's nice of HTC to include a personalised version of that Android initial setup, but I recommend you skip through as much as you can.
- Select you language --- pretty straight forward, right?
- Transfer my stuff --- it's a really great tool if you need to use it
- Internet connection --- choose "Mobile network or Wi-Fi"; I don't know if this is the case with the Sensation, but on older HTC phones this setting actually forces the phone to get the correct settings for APNs
- Scheduled sync --- choose "Automatically sync data"; don't worry, you can turn this off later if you want too, it will just help sync your data if you add an account later in the setup
- Set up Wi-Fi network --- choose your Wi-Fi network
- Use Google location --- it's all up to you here, but it does help to let your apps know your location. I recommend you leave those on
- Tell HTC --- as you can read on the screen, Tell HTC is software that runs in the background. It's something similar to reporting errors on Windows
- Set up accounts --- you can always add accounts later, so I recommend you skip this step
Google account
As this is Android, you will have to sign in to your Google account. When you do this, your email will be synced to Gmail, your contact will show up in the People app from HTC and your calendar will be synced to the Calendar app also from HTC. You can always choose what items from your Google account you want to sync from Setting - Accounts & Sync - Google. I personally use all their services, so I leave all on.
HTC Mail app
HTC have made their own mail app so you can easily view all your account (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Exchange or other POP3 services). This is pretty useful and it works great. I only have the Hotmail and Yahoo accounts connected here, since Gmail does the rest.
HTC People app
All your contacts in one place. Nice, right? Not quite... It took me about a week to figure this one out, but I finally got it to work just right. I keep my contact on Google, you know, family, close friends, work people... and all the detailes I need are there, but when you start to use Facebook, Facebook for HTC, Tweeter, Yahoo and so on, you get all these messeges to sync your contacts. Fine, I did that, now my People app is full of "friends" I haven't spoken in years. They just lay there. And above it all you get all kinds of messages in the status bar to let you know you can "link" you contacts. A huge list if I might add . So whats the deal here?
Sure, linking your contact is useful. Say you don't have a friends email adress, but he posted it on Facebook, or his birthday, or something else. You can get them from linking his accounts and you can find all this info in his Contact Info page. Beside that, you have quick access to conversation history (txt or email), updates, gallery or call history. HTC Sense is great at that And even though Facebook and Facebook for HTC Sense target both the same service, there are a few diferences. For instance, the simple Facebook only syncs contact, while Facebook for HTC Sense syncs live feeds and calendars too for you to use on the Friend Stream app/widget or in the Calendar. The same goes for Twitter.
But when you start linking people, you see that their photo is being changed to whatever profile picture they have on Facebook, Tweeter or other services... and even their name can change too. To resolve this you just go into a persons contact info page, tap the chain icon at the top right hand corner, from there, tap the picture and choose from the list. The same for the name. Sure, you get previews of posts or text messages next to someone in the People app, but you get rid of those "stupid pictures"
Also, I found that having people actualy stored on the phone and not on Google, makes this process a little bit harder, because every time Facebook for HTC synced, contact photos changed. Very annoying.
I find it useful to sync contact from all services, what the hell, let's go crazy, but I sure don't like seing them all in the People app, so just tap the menu button, then tap View. Here you can scroll down to Options and pick what you want to be displayed. You won't lose contacts you don't pick, or the links between them, they just don't appear anymore. Jobe done.
As for creating contacts, be careful. By default, the contact type field is set to whatever category you are viewing in People. If you chose "Phone" here, the contact information will ONLY be present on your phone and it WILL NOT SYNC to other services like Gmail. I'm talking about information that you put there, not the one that is being synced. So in the end you must back them up if you plan to install a custom ROM, or you will lose them.
Accounts & sync
Don't be scared to dive deep in these settings and choose only what you want to sync. Every account has it's own settings, so be pationd.
Here I have my Google account syncing everything, Facebook is syncing contacts, Facebook for HTC Sense is also syncing everything but once a day, HTC Sense (yes, I have an account set up, and it doesn't drain the batery) has only Update when opened checked and update schedule is manual, News, Show Me and Stocks are all manualy updated too since I don't use them at all, Twitter syncs all but manual, Weather is syncing automatically every hour (not much trafic there). All these settings where mare having in mind that I have Auto-Sync enabled. Yes, I know, not so good, but the ammount of data being used is very little because it only has to do the hard job of getting all the stuff to my phone once, then it keeps track if that is up to date.
I hope I've touched every aspect and doubt that you might have had about HTC Sense. Chears.
You COULD read all the long posts above about how to get Sense working....or you could do the simple thing and just use CM7. I say rather than trying to get your feet wet with Sense, just jump straight off the deep end and S-OFF+root your phone and flash CM7. With CM7 you experience Android as it was meant to be experienced by Google. No extra nonsense, no crazy background syncing hogging your battery, just pure, silky smooth Android. Facebook just syncs your contacts with their picture and any phone numbers or email addresses listed on their facebook profile. You can also combine them with your Google contacts, so say for example you meet some girl at a bar and get her number and put it into your phone as a contact. Then later you become facebook friends with her. You can combine her facebook with the contact you already put in at the bar as one unit, and now in addition to the phone number you put in before, you now have her picture from facebook associated with her in your contacts book as well as any email addresses or other phone numbers from her facebook. This is all extremely simple and easy to do with the vanilla no-sense UI.
Not to mention the rom in general is lightning fast and smooth like warm butter It also has CPU management built in as well as tons of other features. It's the perfect combination of performance and simplicity.
to the clown above me
nobody and I mean nobody reads your damn posts,why?simply because they can't.Now stop with the annoying cyan posting
Ughhh... my eyes !
Why the awful colour ?
Macklessdaddy said:
to the clown above me
nobody and I mean nobody reads your damn posts,why?simply because they can't.Now stop with the annoying cyan posting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed. i cant even look at the screen when his post is above another im tryin to read
Having ruined my eyesight reading the cyan post above, it wasn't worth the effort. Seriously, I like Cyanogenmod as much as the next guy, but it's not answering the OP's question.
To the OP: Have you had a look on your SD card? When I got my Desire there was a proper manual on there in .pdf format. I've not checked on my Sensation because I put the SD card from my Desire into it when I upgraded. Failing that you can download it from here: http://www.htc.com/uk/help/htc-sensation/#download

[Q] facebook sync fix for ics

Is there any way to fix it without using third party apps?
Another one with the same problem. Even a third party app would be fine for me... Any suggestion?
evcz said:
Another one with the same problem. Even a third party app would be fine for me... Any suggestion?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not broken. The Official Facebook application doesn't support Android 4.0 just yet so you will not be able to sync your contacts to your device. The only method is to use third party applications. I use Friendcaster Pro and it works really well.
Unfortunately, Till Facebook adds compatibility to the official application... you will not see your contacts sync to your device
Nope, the issue is between Google and Facebook, so we won't see contact sync fixed until Google and Facebook make an agreement or until a custom ROM fixes is. I forget the whole story, but I think Facebook doesn't use Android's contact API so when you sync Facebook contacts with your phone they all stay with Facebook and aren't stored locally on the phone. If you uninstall Facebook all your Facebook contacts go to. Google doesn't like that FB doesn't let you control and keep your FB data on your phone so they revoked Facebooks access to the API.
EDIT: heres an article about it: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/google-disables-contact-sync-in-facebook-for-android-only-nexus/
red_skittles said:
Nope, the issue is between Google and Facebook, so we won't see contact sync fixed until Google and Facebook make an agreement or until a custom ROM fixes is. I forget the whole story, but I think Facebook doesn't use Android's contact API so when you sync Facebook contacts with your phone they all stay with Facebook and aren't stored locally on the phone. If you uninstall Facebook all your Facebook contacts go to. Google doesn't like that FB doesn't let you control and keep your FB data on your phone so they revoked Facebooks access to the API.
EDIT: heres an article about it: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/google-disables-contact-sync-in-facebook-for-android-only-nexus/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You sorta proved my point. More or less its not compatibility with Android 4.0 but its the Nexus S. Once again Facebook will have to upgrade the application in order to make it compatible with the Nexus S. Only difference between what I said is instead of Android 4.0 its for the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus
Facebook contact data will continue to appear within the Facebook app. Like all developers on Android, Facebook is free to use the Android contacts API to truly integrate contacts on the device, which would allow users to have more control over their data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Azuske said:
You sorta proved my point. More or less its not compatibility with Android 4.0 but its the Nexus S. Once again Facebook will have to upgrade the application in order to make it compatible with the Nexus S. Only difference between what I said is instead of Android 4.0 its for the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Facebook never updated the app on Gingerbread. Facebook sync was included in custom ROMS because developers enabled it. Nothing to do with official support from Facebook. Until Google and Facebook sort this out, vanilla Android won't support contact sync, unless Facebook starts using the regular contact API
Friendcaster is not allowing me to login (whitepage)... Is it really compatible with ICS?
evcz said:
Friendcaster is not allowing me to login (whitepage)... Is it really compatible with ICS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would also like to have this verified, hehe, before i spend the $5 for this app!
def would like to see some sync action to my ICS rom... having no pics on the contact face is hard!
try syncmypix
try syncmypix, works good for facebook pics
Thanks! This worked
If you are OK with 3rd party apps, take a look at this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=20477937#post20477937

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