Building a Facebook Alternative App

donkeyman · Jan 11, 2011

There are so many Twitter apps for Android, but where are all the Facebook alternatives? The few that did exist have come and gone off the market.

So... I'm going to write one. See screenshots for my progress thus far. I am not a software developer, so this is painfully slow but it is coming along thanks to the stackoverflow website where I steal bits and pieces of code to put this together. I have never used Blabber or Bloo, but I hear they were good in their time and I have high expectations to meet.

I am about 20 hours away from letting this out of my hands for testing on another device. More details of this project is hosted on my Droidbook v0.1.0 | Facebook page if anybody is interested.

ving · Jan 11, 2011

I like it

Can't wait to see the finished product.

durps · Jan 11, 2011

Looks great! Just please tell me it'll have push notifications.
And if it has live chat, the ability to Stay Offline lol.

Colchicine · Jan 11, 2011

In contrast to durps, I want all notifications to be able to be turned off. I have all notifications turned off on my FB app but I have a near constant stream of boxes in my status bar. If there was an alternative, I would surely switch to it.

donkeyman · Jan 11, 2011

Colchicine said:
In contrast to durps, I want all notifications to be able to be turned off. I have all notifications turned off on my FB app but I have a near constant stream of boxes in my status bar. If there was an alternative, I would surely switch to it.

The reason why I started developing this app was because of the constant 24/7 stream of notifications in Facebook version 1.5 that cannot be turned off. It is a bug, which I am sure Facebook will address some day.

My mission is to build an app that the iOS users will be jealous of. I am only limited by what's published in the official Facebook SDK API specifications. I intend to implement all API functions in this app. The only thing missing from the API is chat.

One more screenshot will be posted later this week (time permitting).

imjehh · Jan 11, 2011

Looks great man! I followed your post when you were trying to help out the other guy who was having the constant unwanted push notifications...I definitely have the same problem, and would buy this app you're making. Let us know how it goes

admile3 · Jan 11, 2011

This stackoverflow website you speak of, is it Stack Overflow? If so, is there a certain section that is dedicated more for android development or java developement? App looks great!

donkeyman · Jan 11, 2011

admile3 said:
This stackoverflow website you speak of, is it Stack Overflow? If so, is there a certain section that is dedicated more for android development or java developement? App looks great!

There is an Android tag which is quite popular.
Newest 'android' Questions - Stack Overflow

donkeyman · Jan 22, 2011

Update: My Facebook app is now in beta testing. The only features enabled for now are status updates, comments, and likes because Facebook doesn't want me doing too much with their API. It is coming along slow and steady with lots of attention on navigation and data bandwidth usage.

Droidbook's Facebook Page

jtcady · Jan 22, 2011

Nice, I'll test it out.

donkeyman · Jan 22, 2011

Guys, download link will be published in a few days. I have to remove some hard-coded things so that it will work properly against your account.

@alexsamson: Considering how easy it is to make really good looking user interfaces in Android, there is no excuse for the crappy UI we are seeing in the Market. And this coming from somebody who hasn't written a line of code in nearly a decade.

Ashes75 · Jan 22, 2011

looks really good, would love to test it out!

Jammy · Jan 23, 2011

Can't wait for this! Bump & subscribed.

CriticalMass · Jan 23, 2011

Android definitely needs more facebook apps. the stock one that google puts out blows.

Jammy · Jan 23, 2011

CriticalMass said:
Android definitely needs more facebook apps. the stock one that google puts out blows.

I'm fairly certain Google didn't write the Facebook app...

jtcady · Jan 23, 2011

If you do add a chat feature down the road, it would be nice to have a disable setting for it. If people need to talk to me that bad, they can text. Isn't that the point of a phone?

jtcady · Jan 27, 2011

Any update on this? I see that a new version is coming.

donkeyman · Jan 27, 2011

It is being put to use daily and I'm ironing out the obvious kinks in the software. I was hoping to put up the *.apk for download earlier in the week, but I didn't feel right publishing something that works 50% of the time.

The biggest bug I have is the fact that the FB server is slow during mid-day. When FB is slow, the application locks the phone for about 20 seconds until the HTTP request times out. I really couldn't put it out there with this not very nice behavior.

And to prove that I've been working hard at this, how about a prettier skin just like Tweetdeck. I spent a whole 2 days making this app theme-able.

imjehh · Jan 27, 2011

nice, looks great so far!

jtcady · Jan 27, 2011

Very nice, it will definitely be on my phone lol

Xavier · Jan 28, 2011

Looking fantastic!! Please keep us updated

flipn0tic · Jan 28, 2011

This is looking great so far. Keep up the good work. One surefire way to get the buzz going on this is to offer things that the stock FB app can't do, like keeping everything within the app (not linking to mobile site), photo tagging, and push notifications.

acunningham · Jan 28, 2011

If you implement the following features, you've got a convert:

1. The ability to upload videos.

2. The ability to see who it was liked an article.

Both of which the stock FB client for Android bizarrely lacks...

donkeyman · Feb 3, 2011

acunningham said:
If you implement the following features, you've got a convert:

1. The ability to upload videos.

2. The ability to see who it was liked an article.

Both of which the stock FB client for Android bizarrely lacks...

RE: #1, The FB API does not allow uploading of videos. I can only do what FB allows me to do.

RE: #2, This is already roughed-in so it is easy to support.

donkeyman · Feb 3, 2011

flipn0tic said:
This is looking great so far. Keep up the good work. One surefire way to get the buzz going on this is to offer things that the stock FB app can't do, like keeping everything within the app (not linking to mobile site), photo tagging, and push notifications.

All FB functions that are supported by the official API will remain inside the app. But I know there will be a few things that the API doesn't do where I will have to send you to the mobile site. See photo tagging.

Photo tagging is not supported by the FB API.

Push notifications is supported by the FB API. So it is definitely possible. But I won't have control over what FB pushes. So if the notifications are outdated, blame FB. But I'm sure users will blame me anyway.

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