RIM has made Facebook for BlackBerry, version 2.0, available via its BlackBerry Beta World portal. The latest update includes support for Facebook Chat and messages — which will now automatically land in your unified mailbox. Provided that you leave yourself signed in, the app will automatically notify you of new chat messages, even if you don’t have the app open. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve accidentally “Liked” a random friend’s status while scrolling through our Facebook News Feed, so a revamped layout that prevents this from occurring is certainly welcome. It’s also now possible to check-in, update your status, or post photos, directly from the top of your News Feed. Facebook for BlackBerry 2.0 offers revamped navigation controls, and a new notifications bar that looks a lot like the “Today View” in BlackBerry 6. Lastly, the profile view has been tweaked, and now allows users to toggle between wall, info, and photo tabs on a friend’s page.

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BlackBerry users who are hooked on Facebook will be pleased to know that Facebook for BlackBerry 1.6 will be available for download as of 6pm Pacific tonight. In addition to some minor tweaks, a few major enhancements and additions have been made:

• Status updates and highlights on the home page – you can now view your friends’ most recent status updates right on the home page. Highlights like photo uploads and wall posts are just a click away and you can comment on a photo, poke a friend, etc right from the home page.

• Wall access from within Facebook for BlackBerry – with one click on your friend’s profile picture from the home page, you can access their wall without having to go to the mobile site.

• Photo viewing in a simple, easy-to-use slideshow format – check out your friends’ latest photo albums with improved photo viewing, and view albums in a simple and easy-to-use slideshow format. Just scroll back and forth through the thumbnails along the bottom to display the larger picture in the center of the screen.

• Facebook for BlackBerry 1.6 will also support three new languages:
  • Thai
  • Indonesian
  • European Portuguese

As always, Facebook for BlackBerry can be downloaded from www.blackberry.com/facebook on your device or from your desktop. Let’s just hope we don’t need an emergency fix three days from now.

UPDATE: The new build will be available at 6pm Pacific, not Eastern as originally reported.

It would be oh so easy to take a few cheap shots with this one but we’re going to just go ahead and give out the facts. It seems the launch of Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry was wrought with difficulties as a few major bugs quickly reared their ugly heads. Specifically, if you downloaded Facebook for BlackBerry your default calendar might have gone all screwy and been replaced by one specifically for Facebook. It wasn’t only calendars that got messed up however, as a few friendships hit the rocks when everyone who didn’t list a phone number on his or her Facebook profile page was bombarded with requests to share numbers. Anyway, 1.5.0.32 is now here so hit http://www.blackberry.com/facebook from your Berry’s browser and grab it. But please do one thing if you’ve already got 1.5.0.31 on your handset and your calendar went haywire — make sure that you restore your default calendar by way of Options > Advanced Options > Default Services after you install the update.

We gave you an exhaustive preview of Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry handsets back in early March and while it isn’t necessarily a huge improvement over version 1.2, improved OS integration definitely makes it a worthwhile upgrade. We can’t tell you how many comments and emails we’ve received since then asking, begging, pleading and even demanding we provide further details as to the new version’s release date. Thankfully we can put all that behind us now as version 1.5 is available for all to enjoy. That’s right people, no need to email us with threats anymore — just hit App World or http://www.blackberry.com/facebook on your handset and you’re in business. As always, let us know what you think in the comments section.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

For a while now there has been talk of Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry. Back in November we cited a report which indicated a January release, something that obviously did not come to fruition. However, we can say with absolute certainty that Facebook 1.5 is just around the corner because we manged to get our hands on it courtesy of one of our RIM ninjas. A lot of the new features are ones we’ve already gone over, but some are more recent additions and actually pretty interesting, though not necessarily for a good reason.

Now we know your time is important and the only BlackBerry content you’re really interested in is our amazing giveaway that is offering up a Bold, a Storm, a Curve 8900 and 500 BlackBerry unlock codes, but if you’ll take but a few moments out of your day you might just learn a thing or two. We promise it’s short and sweet.

Three Somewhat Major Enhancements

When starting up Facebook for the first time a Setup Wizard pops up on the screen and lists options to control the three biggest changes to Facebook for BlackBerry — the integration with the BlackBerry Message, Calendar and Contacts applications.

BlackBerry Message Application Integration:

Truth be told, this is probably the single greatest feature of the Facebook 1.5 app. In previous builds, when a Facebook message/poke/whatever was received one was forced to navigate their way to the Facebook application itself, open it up and check what you’ve received. But with 1.5 you can bypass all of this by enabling the BlackBerry Message application option and view every Facebook message from the convenience of your inbox.

BlackBerry Calendar Application Integration:

The title of this feature pretty much sums it all up: all of the Facebook events you’ve RSVP’d to and all of your friends birthdays are downloaded to a calendar labeled “Facebook”. Again, this is completely optional but we’re not too sure why someone would avoid taking advantage of this feature. In fact, we’re confident that this feature will save at least a few relationships a year (yes ladies, he has no more excuses).

BlackBerry Contacts Application Integration:

This feature, which we’re torn about internally, allows users to integrate Facebook friends with existing BlackBerry contacts. Phone numbers, work details, and most profile pictures from Facebook are added to the BlackBerry Contacts application. The great thing about this is if you would like to apply this feature to only a select few you are able to do so by “linking” or “unlinking” whomever you wish. And if your Facebook friend does not have their phone number listed and it’s not already in your Contacts then the app allows you to request that they share it with you.

Everything Else is Hum-Drum

Design and GUI:

We’re very disappointed with the design effort that went into Facebook 1.5. In fact, there clearly wasn’t any. Save for a few animated transitions between a limited amount of screens, the application still looks exactly like it did on an 8100 Pearl when it came out in October 2007.

Call Friends from the Friends Screen:

Now it’s possible to call friends who have their numbers listed on Facebook or whose Facebook profile is linked with their Contact profile on your ‘Berry. This is perfect for those who have friends who tend to tweet slanderous things and need to be straightened out.

Comment on Status Messages:

One of the more popular Facebook features is the ability to comment on friends status messages. This functionality was not available in previous versions of Facebook for BlackBerry, but that is simply because the feature is newer than the application updates. We’re very pleased to see this has been packaged in with 1.5.

Change your Listed Phone Numbers:

At this point in time it’s not possible for users to edit their Facebook profiles from a mobile device. However, Facebook 1.5 introduces an option to edit your mobile and landline numbers so that your friends can keep tabs on your ever changing numbers (if only Google cared about GrandCentral). Umm, is it really expected that someone is going to change his or her phone number so frequently that this is necessary? If you can wait a few hours to get to a computer to change update your favorite movies after seeing the latest flick then surely you can wait until that time to change your listed phone numbers. Besides, your friends can just message you and ask you to call them.

Improved access to Facebook’s WAP site:

One of the most irritating things about previous builds has been the fact that whenever you wanted to view a friend’s profile on the WAP site by way of the application, you would have to enter your sign-in credentials for the WAP portal. Thankfully this isn’t the case any more because so long as you launch the WAP site via the application you will not have to enter credentials ever again.

Conclusion

The new intergration with the BlackBerry Message, Calendar and Contacts applications is quite enjoyable, but we’re really disappointed that nothing more substantial will be included. With that said, Facebook 2.0 is in the works but if it took us this long to get to where Facebok 1.5 is today then we have to confess we don’t have much hope for anything but the same old, same old. Then again, by the time Facebook 2.0 is expected to be released the less powerful units on the market like the Pearl will be pretty much be antiques, meaning that RIM and Facebook can safely roll-out a more enhanced application platform-wide.