Facebook goes all Twittery in its new iOS 7 app updates

Facebook updated its iPhone and iPad app this morning for Apple’s new iOS 7. And the result is very reminiscent of Twitter.

The new Facebook app kills the one infinite scroll of the previous app, in a sense, by adding a row of never-moving icons to the bottom of every screen, to make the app “easier to get around,” Facebook said. Those menu items include News Feed, Requests, Messages, Notifications, and the ever-popular “More.”

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That’s pretty much like Twitter’s app, which has the key Home, Connect, Discover, and Me menu items along the bottom (although reportedly not for long).

Now you can’t swipe horizontally left in the Facebook app to access all your pages, groups, and other assorted parts of the Facebook megalopolis: you simply tap More and access everything you need. Facebook search is available from the top left, while friend search, and a full list of all your Facebook friends, is available from the top right.

Status, Photo, and Check In are still at the top of the news feed.

One of the effects of the update would appear to be quicker access to friend requests, messages, and notifications — they’re now closer to your thumb — while embedding them within a menu structure at the bottom that gets you pretty much anywhere you want to go within Facebook, and cleaning up the top bar.

Speaking of the top bar, one of the new iOS 7 updates is a translucent effect at the top that changes state based on where you are in the app. On the new feed, it sports the various Facebook status update options, but in Search, it radically simplifies, and in Messages, it changes to Message (to start a new exchange) and Group, to create a new set of people to which you want to communicate. And the new Notifications view is extremely simple, just focused on showing you how you’ve been mentioned, liked, or referenced on Facebook.

Unlike rival social network Twitter, however, Facebook had no new integrations with Apple to announce with its updated iOS 7-compatible app.

The update is available now in the app store.