Mar 20, 2013
Facebook opens Mobile application’s beta testers’ club
Recent HTML 5 rejection in mobile applications made it impossible for Facebook to try the innovations in small groups of users. The social network made a decision to organize a club of beta testers which offers the access to new functions for all the volunteers.
In recent times Facebook has started an active campaign to modernize the web-site, and the same changes are considered to happen concerning mobile applications. They don’t use HTML 5 anymore and that is why it is impossible for the company to try the innovations in small but considerable group. Earlier Facebbok used to use the HTML 5 technology in the applications but then the company decided to use the native code for the program to work faster.
Facebook employee named Mike Johnson informed the following: “HTML 5 was chosen because that technology allowed testing the updates without making users download new program versions manually”.
Earlier Mark Zuckerberg noticed that using HTML 5 in mobile application was one of Facebook mistakes. Nevertheless the standard rejection entailed new problem, that is inability to test the updates.
And to fix the situation Facebook decided to launch the application offline updates providing the possibility to test such functions as audio messages, bulk pictures upload and many others. The possibility to download testing updates is provided only to some Android users who set up smartphones to install programs from sources different from Google Play. The Beta version testers must approve the update initialization manually. And here it is worth to say that Blackberry works the same way - with the service Blackberry Beta Zone.
Developers beta updates opportunity arises from the fact that the Android ecosystem remains open enough. And it is possible that Facebook will realize something the same for iOS, but it would require more difficult and inconvenient updating system. A new club of testers is some kind of good news for true “facebookers”. To have an access to the product beta-version and to not yet running functions is considered by Web environment as a “like”. Advanced Facebook users will be able to strengthen their reputation sharing their impressions of the basic version unreleased functions.
Source: vesti.ru