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发帖数: 3492 | 1 Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:30:06 PDT
As noted by TechCrunch, some users of Facebook's app for iOS have noticed
the social network's new "App Center" tab showing up in the navigation menu
within the app. The feature is designed as a one-stop destination for app
discovery on a variety of platforms, with recommendations based on Facebook'
s editors' selections and personalized by drawing from the usage of each
person's friends.
Similar to the interfaces that the company showed off in early May when it
announced the App Center plans, you can see a left-hand navigation feature
within Facebook’s feature-heavy iOS app. Apps with unread notifications
appear in the top section. If you click through, you see the App Center (and
you’ll note that the logo in the screenshot also matches what Facebook has
previously released).
Within the app center, a "Social Picks" tab offers apps based on what the
user's friends have used, while a "Top Apps" tab contains picks from
Facebook's editors as determined by quality and popularity. The listings
include iOS, Android, HTML5, and desktop apps, with users able to click
directly through to the App Store or other marketplaces to download apps.
The Next Web argues that the addition of App Center will be a major boost
for Apple, helping quality apps to surface from among Facebook's hundreds of
millions of users and those top apps to be easily accessible to other users.
By launching this App Center, Facebook is actually doing Apple a gigantic
favor in two regards. First, it will become a serious point of distribution
for Apple developers, secondarily it will be a great avenue to talk Facebook
developers into building iOS apps if they haven’t so far. [...]
Facebook’s App Center won’t be clouded by anything other than actual data
and usage. Imagine that, apps will actually bubble up to the top based on
how often people engage with them.
After several years of what has appeared to be a tenuous relationship
between Apple and Facebook, it certainly appears that the two companies are
now moving to work more closely together. At the D10 conference late last
month, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at Facebook integration and perhaps other
announcements in that vein, urging users to "stay tuned".
For us, we want to provide customers simple and elegant ways to do the
things they want to do. Facebook has hundreds of millions of customers. So,
anyone that has an iPhone or iPad, we want them to have the best experience
with Facebook on those platforms. So stay tuned.
Just a few days after Cook's comments, it was reported that Apple will
indeed show off Facebook integration in iOS 6 at next week's Worldwide
Developers Conference, making it much easier for users to post photos,
status updates, and other content to the social network from within iOS.
With Facebook also feeding back into the App Store through its own App
Center on iOS, it certainly seems that the companies are moving quickly to
solidify their relationship for their mutual benefit and to the benefit of
the millions of users who rely on both Apple devices and Facebook's social
network. |
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