Finally, Facebook for the Google Android platform.

I was one of the first people to get a T-mobile G1 running the, open source, Google Android operating system.  Because it was open source, I expected there to be more and better applications available for the Android Platform than even the iPhone but sadly, even after a year since it was announced the applications and the Android Market place haven’t been stellar by any means.  They didn’t even offer a usable Facebook application and rumor had it , because of the issues between Google and Facebook, there might never be a ” official Android” Facebook application.

Fast forward to September 8, 2009 and suddenly there was an official Facebook application for the Android Platform.  Not only was it more than just a wrapper of the mobile Facebook website, it was an actual application written for the Android platform and it is free.

Since I am a somewhat heavy Facebook user I couldn’t find any satisfaction in the other Facebook applications.  There is even a paid Facebook application that started out with good intentions but soon and quickly went downhill.

As you can guess, I was really excited to try the new application and ended up installing it almost as soon as it showed up in the Android Market Place.  Within seconds after install I was logged in and reading my feed.  Most of the other apps that I used often took 30 seconds or longer to load my feed, even on the the 3G data network but this application loaded my feed in just a couple of seconds.  I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me but it has been consistently fast over the last five days that I have been using it.

Some of the main features are;

• Reading your feed.
• Reading and posting to your wall.
• “Like” from the main feed.
• View user (friends) information.
• Take, upload and attach a comment to photos.
• Upload photos stored on your phone.
• You can also post from the main feed page.
• It is free.

There are also other settings for notifications and the way the application behaves;

• You can refresh the feed by shaking the phone.
• Message notification.
• Poke notification.
• Friend request notification.
• Event invite notification.
• Other features like vibrate, phone LED and ring-tones for notifications.

There are a couple of things that aren’t integrated into the application.  When you get messages, poke or other notifications and select them, it opens the internet browser and takes you to the mobile Facebook website (m.facebook.com), which seems kind of clunky but it is functional.  I am hoping, as the application matures, it will have many of those features integrated into the application itself but only time will tell.

Now that I can use Facebook on my Android phone, my thoughts of trading my G1 in for an iPhone have been put behind me.  The Android platform has a long way to go before it can stand up next to Apple and their iPhone mountain but I feel that this effort will bring Google a few feet closer to the top.