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Facebook SDK for iOS and the iOS 6 Facebook Integration

September 25, 2012ByEddie O'Neil

Download the 3.1 SDK now.

We’re happy to announce the Facebook SDK 3.1 for iOS that adds support for the Facebook integration in iOS 6. This integration opens up new opportunities for mobile app developers as you can easily build the foundation for a social app, Facebook Login and sharing functionality, into your product.

The Facebook integration in iOS 6 is complementary to the Facebook SDK for iOS. If you are an iOS developer who is just getting started with Facebook, or if you are building with Facebook but haven't started using our SDK, here's what you need to know.

Get started with the Facebook integration in iOS 6.

iOS 6 has core Facebook integration features required to build a basic social app such as:

Native Facebook Login, which is the first step in using Facebook to drive user engagement and app installs.

Sharing: Native “sheet” for posting content to Facebook.

Learn more about the Facebook integration in iOS 6.

Drive additional growth and engagement with the Facebook SDK for iOS.

In addition to enabling iOS 6 integration support, our SDK provides advanced functionality that makes it easier to build more immersive social experiences, as well as better ways to distribute and promote your app. These features include:

Native, ready-to-use UI controls: The SDK includes several pre-built user interface controls:

  • Friend Picker to help apps easily pick friends. Example: use a friend picker to choose friends to tag in an Open Graph action.

  • Places Picker so apps can easily integrate with Facebook places. Example: use this picker to let users include a place with their posts.

  • Profile Picture control so your app can easily show the profile picture of a user, their friends, places, or other kinds of Facebook objects.

  • Login controls for easily building Login and Logout experiences.

Drop these controls into your apps to build fast, native and consistent experiences for common app features. We have also added support for the new iPhone 5 screen size and resolution.

Facebook Login support across iOS versions: Lets your app work seamlessly on all iOS versions 4.0+ and integrates easily with the native login support in iOS 6.

Easy session management: Introduces the FBSession API that manages, stores, and refreshes user tokens. You can also override default behaviors to build advanced features. It uses the modern Objective-C “block” metaphor to notify your app of login, logout and other session state changes, and it instantly integrates with iOS 6.

Improved API support: Minimizes the code you need to call Facebook Graph, FQL, and other APIs. It natively supports batched API requests to significantly improve performance for API calls, which translate into faster, better user experiences.

Ad analytics (Beta): Lets you record analytics to give you information about the effectiveness of your ads and understand how people use your app. Learn more about the mobile ads product.

Start developing today to take advantage of these powerful new tools and resources. Please share your feedback with us on Facebook's StackOverflow page with the tag: facebook-ios-sdk.

Download the 3.1 SDK now.