Recent changes to Facebook’s iPhone app have made it even more frustrating to use. The company has updated its app to hide the “Recent” feed, which is arguably the most popular feature of the entire app. Also, the addition of more and more ads makes using the Facebook iPhone app almost unbearable.
But there is no need to worry because Facebook has another app that gets rid of these annoyances and provides an overall better user experience.
It’s called Paper, and it’s actually an alternative way to browse Facebook on your iPhone. After all, this is a better Paper’s way of surfing Facebook as its design and look is elegant and simple. The app relies on swipe gestures to navigate, and perhaps Paper’s best feature is that there are no ads to be found.
The app is still fairly new, but it was launched in January as an alternative way to access Facebook from your iPhone. Paper recently received a very generous update, adding more features that put it even more on par with the regular Facebook app. Users can now edit their profile and cover photos, view photo tags, mention other friends using the “@” tag, and even use hashtags.
The previous update to Paper added the ability to view friends’ birthdays, events, and group updates, so it’s definitely an app that’s garnering attention from Facebook and will likely grow over the next few months and years. It hasn’t hit the mainstream yet, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, now is the time to do it.
Perhaps one of the best features of Paper is that there are no ads to be found. This is a big issue with the regular Facebook app and it can be really annoying when ads appear in the middle of users’ News Feeds. But with Paper you won’t see ads if you don’t want to. There’s a section called “Trend” that you can add to Paper, which might get some advertising fire, but that’s a section on the homepage that you don’t even need to have, which is really nice.
To download Paper, you need to open the App Store on your iPhone and search for “Paper” in the search field (or visit this link on your iPhone and download directly from there). It should be one of the first results that opens, but to make sure you’re downloading the correct app, “Facebook, Inc.” make sure it is. is the name of the developer, which will appear in small gray letters below the name of the application.
From there, simply click the big Free button to start downloading the app (you may need to enter your Apple ID password first).
When you open the app, you will be asked to login with your Facebook credentials and after that you will be officially logged in and be able to use the app to its full potential. The app relies heavily on swiping to navigate, so you’ll frequently swipe up and down to open and close different items, and swipe left and right to go to the next or previous item in your News Feed.
Perhaps Paper’s most nifty feature is the ability to tilt your phone left or right to scroll through full-size photos and see them in greater detail. It’s a bit of a gimmick, but it’s fun to use and makes the app feel more interactive, something that the regular Facebook app is seriously lacking.