by Lynn Mareth, Vice President at Data Network Group.

For a while I thought I was the only person frustrated by the fact that I had to use Safari or one of the various third party apps such as Friendly, which wasn’t very friendly by the way, to access facebook on my iPad. Well, the frustration is finally over! After many months of rumors and speculation, facebook has finally released their own app for the iPad. The official iPad application is available starting today as a free download from the Apple App Store.

The new app’s interface is supposed to be optimized for the iPad screen and will enhance browsing of photos, which include features like easy pinch to zoom capabilities and swipe to flip through pictures. The app also allows for playing Facebook games in full-screen mode, chatting with friends, watching high-res Facebook videos, and recording HD video for streaming to Airplay devices.

I’m not sure why it took facebook so long to release the app, but I’m excited to download and try it out for myself tonight.