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Yesterday I downloaded the new version of the Facebook application for iPhone 3.1 that introduces new useful features such as address book synchronization and push notifications. Now you can synchronize all contacts of your iPhone Address Book with the list of your friends on Facebook and receive instant notifications when someone leave a comment or send you a message on your Facebook profile. I think this application is great, useful, I like the interface and the simplicity of use. But I noticed two serious problems that can discourage its use.
Synchronization fails
After synchronizing my address book I noticed some errors with pictures and data of my friends. Many pictures and Facebook profile URLs was wrong and they linked to people I never meet and not present in my list of friends on Facebook. I “discovered” this error after synchronizing my iPhone with iTunes, so I had to change manually all wrong information related to my contacts.
Push notification kills iPhone battery
Push notification is a very useful feature. Every time someone send you a message, wall post, friend request, friend confirmation, comment, you’ll receive a short message on your iPhone (it’s like an SMS notification). The big problem is that this feature kills iPhone battery in less than three hours. So, if you can’t recharge frequently your device I suggest you to turn off push notifications.
To turn off push notifications select Settings > Notifications:
If you don’t want to turn off all notifications, you can deactivate some of them from Settings > Facebook > Push Notifications:
Are you using this application? Have you encountered similar problems? Let us know!
Antonio Lupetti is an italian engineer, pro blogger, Mac user, founder of woorkup.com. He lives in Rome, Italy. Follow Antonio on 
January 7, 2010 at 6:09 pm
I did notice a decrease in battery life today – my first full day with Facebook 3.1 and Push Notifications enabled – but it did last me through my commute and the work day (almost 12 hours). I got quite a few notifications during the day, so I find it odd that your phone died so fast.
January 8, 2010 at 12:50 am
I had surprisingly few sync errors in my AddressBook, I think maybe just one or two. I noticed some bugs in that not everyone received a link to their Facebook profile in their AddressBook entry. Another thing that irritated me was that Facebook would try and match up people in my AddressBook but not my friends on Facebook to profiles. Cool in a way, but at the same time I felt they were overreaching their bounds.
January 8, 2010 at 1:03 am
somehow i agree with you on this, it does kills the phone battery though i havent yet encounter any errors with sync feature :)
January 8, 2010 at 3:11 am
Although I did not sync my contacts I have not noticed any battery life decrease? Have you tried the updated version that sorts out the sync problems 3.1.1?
January 8, 2010 at 4:47 am
Another thing about the sync feature is it removed all of my pictures from my contacts, even those without Facebook whose entries in my Address Book didn’t match with any Facebook profile. It removed and deleted their pictures.
January 8, 2010 at 5:27 am
I’m surprised you are having such issues with push notifications. I’ve had push notifications on for many apps since push was added and never had an issue – with my battery lasting for well over a day. Push notifications being enabled for Facebook similarly has had no noticeable affect on battery life except possibly increasing it a bit as I no longer check the full app for updates so often.
January 8, 2010 at 10:44 am
I’ve disabled push notifications in the Facebook because I use Notifications app, for all my notification needs. And it also gives you a preview of the comments or content of facebook mails. I don’t need to open Facebook app to see what that guy replied.
January 13, 2010 at 3:29 am
I´m hearing from different places that folks having battery problems with their iPhones. I charge my battery every day and at the end of the day I have in average about 20% left. Sometimes about 50%. I have a seperate program that notify me on new mail so I download them when I opening the mail app. I’m using safari and other applications that connect to the internet a lot including other apps that notify me with push. I have wifi enabled all the time. 3G as well. My suscriber doesn’t offer 2G or edge. I don’t use Youtube that much or games that draining battery, but I do play games and watching YouTube occasionally. I think my battery last longer because I’m not having my screen to the brightest. I don’t have a problem with using my iPhone even outside at a nearly minimum brightness.
January 19, 2010 at 7:02 am
I just downloaded the Facebook app and within a day I noticed massive battery losses. I turned my iphone back on and it showed 73% and within 3-5 minutes was on 20%!
Narrowed it down to this and I think/hope that it has fixed it. What annoys me is that it automatically had all of the Push Notifications ON when I didn’t have it on before..