Facebook announced plans to introduce a native sharing feature that app developers can add to their iOS apps during its Mobile DevCon held in New York City Thursday. The “Share Dialog” will allow users of non-Facebook applications that use a Facebook login to share items from within the application without having to leave it. The development is part of the company's new SDK for iOS apps.
Recent versions of iOS have included Facebook integration and the ability to share from most native apps within the device. With the new iOS SDK, Facebook will fill the gap between third-party apps and native ones by introducing its own sharing feature that can publish app activities to their Facebook walls.
Along with the new Share Dialog, mobile apps will have to ask users specifically whether it's OK to “share on their behalf,” with the opportunity for users to refuse. If users accept, though, Facebook will gain itself a new strain of data and content for its service driven by third-party app developers.
Facebook has already been dinged for the way its “Like” sharing button embedded on websites enables the service to track users even if they don't interact with it directly. The new share dialog is reminiscent of that because it will give Facebook more information on which apps people use, and more importantly, how they use them. Ultimately, it drives users back to Facebook.
In addition to the Share Dialog, the new iOS SDK includes a 20 percent faster Facebook login dialog. Facebook is also adding an “Object API” that allows developers to create objects—like a post where X person likes Y movie and rates it X stars—directly within the app rather than having to host pages with Open Graph tags.
The announcement of the new SDK follows Facebook releasing Facebook Home for Android, which also brings the network closer to more app usage data by wrapping the frontmost app launcher in Facebook’s own lock screen. Facebook has no immediate plans to launch a similar product for iOS.
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