We always love updates for our apps, especially when they bring drastic changes for the better. Facebook’s newest update is definitely a big change, but it’s also pretty weird. Instead of getting the prompt to update your app from the Play Store, users are beginning to see a notification from within the Facebook app itself letting you know there’s an update available. The app then updates from within itself, no Play Store required. It’s a weird approach to take, especially for a major application like Facebook. Although, with Google’s foray into the world of social networking and web integration with Google Plus, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook attempt to distance themselves from their competitor’s market.
As far as the update goes, it’s actually pretty minor. It includes the ability to change profile photos from within the app, and you can now hide and mark postss as spam. It also comes with a new permission to allow the app to auto-update itself. According to Facebook’s support center, that’ll only happen over WiFi, but I’m not sure this is a direction everyone is going to be comfortable with. Anyway, we’d give you a Play Store link in the source and tell you to go download the app, but, uh… I guess that doesn’t work anymore. So let us know in the comments if your Facebook app has become self aware updates itself.
source: Facebook
Come comment on this article: Facebook updates their Android app… without using the Play Store