Facebook

Rumor has it Apple could be increasing their Facebook integration for iPhone OS 4, perhaps to include contact sync and messaging support for end users and Facebook Connect for developers.

Apple's relationship with social networks has been tentative at best, with Mac OS X 10.6 and iPhoto 09 offering rudimentary integration for things like photo tags. The Facebook app on the iPhone has done some contact syncing (initially with funny to off-putting results), but nothing thus far as hinted at Palm webOS or Microsoft Kin level integration.

Facebook recently announced some huge changes to how, where, and perhaps even why they operate -- and it effects every Facebook users' privacy. Short version: Facebook is "building the social web" by sharing your and your friends' information with more apps, for longer, and via more places outside Facebook than ever before and they're opting you into it by default.

If you're the footloose and Facebook-free sort who lives every moment online with little or no care about who knows what about you, then this likely doesn't effect you one bit.

You can now browse the App Store directly from within Facebook via Apple's newest Facebook application. There are a few tabs to chose from; the proverbial Wall and Info, but then it starts to get interesting.

You have a Featured tab that shows you the week's spotlighted applications. A Games tab lets you filter by any game genre. Search and Share, of course, lets you search for any app. Once you find the application you are looking for, you can launch into iTunes Preview and straight into the iTunes Store to get it (and post it to your profile, of course).

The latter is what I am excited about because now I can share my recent app favorites with them.

Virtue as partnered with Apple to create this page hot on the heels of their other Facebook page for iTunes. Check for some more screenshots after the break!

We're moving TiPb's Facebook presence from the old group and page to a newer, shiner, and -- soon to be -- better, unified TiPb Fan Page!

The bad news: since we can't rename the old iphoneblog.com page or transfer the group to go with new, we have to apologize for asking everyone to move over with us, but we'll do our best to more than make up for the hassle -- that's a promise!