Facebook app for iPhone to get speed boost

4 hrs.

Suzanne Choney

Facebook's iPhone app will be getting?a much-needed improvement in speed, something users have been complaining about for awhile.?

The social network is a rich?experience on the iPhone, but that richness has a lot of complexity behind it, and that has been contributing to making the app more tortoise-like.

Two Facebook engineers, speaking anonymously to the New York Times, said that the Facebook has rebuilt the app to optimize it for speed.

We asked Facebook about the change.?"We don't comment on rumor and speculation," a spokesperson told msnbc.com.

The engineers said the new app, due sometime this summer, is being mainly?built using Objective-C, the?programming language used to build apps for Apple's iOS. They told the Times that many of the components of the existing version of the Facebook app use Web-based?HTML5.

"The current version of the app is essentially an Objective-C shell with a Web browser inside.?When it comes to speed, this is like putting the engine of a Smart Car in the body of a Ferrari," said the Times.

Have?you experienced the Facebook crawl on your iPhone? Let us know via your comments here.

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on?Facebook,?and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

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