Let's just clear the air: for a long time Facebook's iOS app has sucked.

Features that worked fine in desktop browsers took on an awkward UI or were just left out, and interminable loading screens tried our patience to the breaking point. (When loading the news feed takes so long you have time to guess what its contents will look like and think better of reading it, you know there's a problem.)And, believe it or not, all that design talent Facebook poaches thought so too. They explain the problem, along with what went into fixing it, on their "Under the hood" blog . "We realized that when it comes to platforms like iOS, people expect a fast, reliable experience and our iOS app was falling short," wrote engineer Jonathan Dann.The problem with the app's older versions was that instead of being entirely coded with Apple's iOS SDK, it embedded the HTML5 code Facebook used for all its mobile platforms. This made it easy to support mobile access for dozens of devices, but it also slowed everything down.The solution: "We rewrote Facebook for iOS from the ground up (I really did open up Xcode and click 'New Project') with a focus on quality and leveraging the advances that have been made in iOS development." So while the new app mostly looks identical to its HTML5 predecessor, optimizing it for iDevices has made it smoother, more responsive, and just plain faster.The new app also includes a few added features and UI updates - a "New Stories" banner and improved gestures for photo viewing among them - but the main focus of the update was speed.Facebook is reportedly working on a similar update to improve its app for Android phones, but has yet to announce release dates.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN