I there´s one thing Facebook is really good at then it´s providing sh*t user interfaces. So I wasn´t really surprised to find loads of stupid issues in their iPad app. And again I wonder why a company of that size and value is unable to develop a user interface that works and an app that doesn´t crash. But let´s take a look:

When you open up the app you can see the main menu on the left hand side and your news wall on the right. Now that´s fine so far. The lastest post includes a link. I tap on it to open it. A new pane moves in from the right and the link opens in that pane. Ok, good. But hey what´s that? The pane that renders the web page seems to be larger than the visible area as I can´t see the whole page. Ok, so maybe it fits if I hide the left hand menu to make room for the whole thing. It takes me a few swipes and taps to get that managed. Yep, now it fits. Closing an article is quite easy. You just need to tap the button with the back arrow (or swipe to the right as I found out later). Hey, great job on that. Maybe I´m a bit of a weirdo but I like to see the menu and tap the little adidas-button (3 stripes) to show it again. I notice that there are likes and comments for that article. I wonder why they didn´t show up when I was actually reading the article. It would have make sense. Anyway: I tap on the comments/likes button and another smaller pane shows up. Well, not really. I can see 20 pixels of it on the right hand side. I try to drag it in to see it in full size. It doesn´t work - it snaps back. I have to close it what automatically hides my menu again. (Ok, so maybe the menu should always be hidden. Why is it there then?) I open the comments/likes again. Brilliant: I can like and I can comment. So that´s fine.

Finally I´m done with that post. Read it, liked it, commented on it. Let´s see what else is on my wall. Like the on the website they implemented the endless scrolling thingy. (This time without any menu at the end :)) Endless scrolling is fine as the content is timeline based. So that fits perfect.

Hey that awesome brand page posted a new photo. I tap on it to check it out. It´s a nice picture and I´d like to share it with my friends. I can´t. If Facebook is all about sharing why doesn´t it let me share this photo?

I get back to endless-scroll myself through the wall posts. There´s another link. I open it. It´s a great article and I MUST share it. There´s a location bar at the top of the web page. I tap on it to copy and paste the URL. Nothing happens. It doesn´t get selectable. WTF? Why is it there? Hey wait! There´s a button in the upper right corner which might mean that I can open this URL in the external browser. It might be an option to copy and paste the URL to reopen the app to post the link. NO WAY, there´s a Share-option in the menu that opens up. Halleluja!

I´m kinda happy and proud that I found the Share-functionality, tap the back-button to go back to the wall. The wall reloads and starts with the latest news again.

I´m pissed.

PS: I head to scroll myself through my wall several times that day. If the wall didn´t reload I could rely on the bad memory management that caused the app to crash. Also I didn´t have the courage to rotate my iPad from landscape to portrait mode. I´m convinced it will explode.