Bret Taylor, chief technology officer of Facebook, said in an interview yesterday that “we’re releasing it now because it’s done.’’
Two weeks ago, Facebook engineer Jeff Verkoeyen announced on his personal blog that he was leaving to take a job with Google , and that the iPad app he had worked on was nearly complete in May. It was then “repeatedly delayed through the summer,’’ he said, without revealing exactly why.
Rumors have swirled that Apple and Facebook were in talks about deepening the integration of the social network into the system software of the iPhone and iPad. But Apple’s updated system software, announced over the summer, will feature integration with Twitter, another social networking service, rather than Facebook. That will make it easier to “tweet’’ from other applications besides Twitter’s.
Like the previous Facebook app for the iPhone, the new “universal’’ iPhone and iPad app is free.
The updated Facebook app deals with one shortcoming of the old iPhone app, which didn’t play well with apps developed for Facebook’s website. In the new iPhone and iPad app, some applications developed for Facebook will work.
