Facebook App 5.1 For iOS Available

Facebook has updated its iOS app which now have a few new features. The most important to me is the ability to send Facebook messages to your favorite contacts faster. By swiping to the left from any screen in the app, you will reveal a Contacts page where people that you message the most to are at the top (note: the swipe works best when swiping the top navigation area in blue). Previously, you needed to search for the contact, then click on the Message button, and that was a lot more friction than I would care for,

Secondly, the photo-sharing part of the Facebook app has been updated, and it now looks like the Facebook Camera app, which allows you to easily select multiple files at once for upload. This is a welcome addition as photo sharing is clearly a big chunk of the activity on Facebook.

Finally, Facebook is adding the Facebook Gifts to the app for the first time. While I was writing this, the app has showed up in the app store.