Facebook is finally launching an official app for Microsoft's operating system

Jun 27, 2013 06:42 GMT  ·  By

Facebook, like all the other big tech companies, is really interested in the mobile experience these days. Despite of this, Facebook has never made an app for Windows Phone.

There is an official Facebook app, but it's built by Microsoft. Facebook itself focused solely on iOS and Android, and for good reason, as that's where the users are.

During the Windows 8.1 preview event though, Microsoft revealed that an official Facebook app for Windows 8 was coming.

Facebook will be building the app itself, which is the big change. While it will be for Windows 8, not Windows Phone 8, the app will cater to tablets or at least touchscreen devices, and not traditional desktops and laptops, which are all well served by the website.

There's no hard deadline, but the app is set to launch in fall, likely around the time Windows 8.1 launches.

Facebook had a hard time getting its engineers to start working on Android, so it's anyone's guess as to how good the Windows 8 app will be. For a long time, most of Facebook's engineers had an iPhone and only an iPhone and it showed, as the iOS app was noticeably better than the Android one.

However, most of Facebook mobile users are on Android, and the company started working on changing the mentality internally.

It probably managed that by now as, these days, most of its engineers are on Android or at least have an Android phone as well. It remains to be seen whether the Windows 8 app will get the same kind of attention, but it's unlikely.

While the fact that Facebook is working on this was revealed during the Windows 8.1 preview event, the app will work with Windows 8 as well, of course. Windows 8.1 itself is a rather minor update. In fact, you can install the preview right now as an update to Windows 8.