Facebook SDK 3.0 Beta for Android

By Michael Marucheck

Today, we're announcing a major update to the Facebook SDK for Android. We’ve also introduced a new Android Dev Center so you can quickly access tools and resources you need to build great social apps.

With this update, our SDK provides advanced functionality that makes it easier to build more immersive social experiences, as well as better distribute and promote your app. With our SDK and Open Graph, now it's even easier to get more people to install and use your apps regularly.

This release is the biggest overhaul of our Android SDK so far. It's also backwards compatible. Here’s an overview of the new features:

New native UI controls

This release includes several pre-built Fragments and Views for common tasks. Built-in caching and on-demand loading makes these controls more efficient and responsive than web dialogs.

Friend Picker lets people tag friends in an Open Graph action or find other people who installed your app.
Places Picker shows nearby places with customizable locations.
Profile Picture control shows the profile picture for any Facebook object, including people, places and things.
Login controls simplify how you manage user identity and app permissions.

Add these to your apps to build fast, native and consistent experiences for common features.

Simplified session management

This release includes several tools that simplify authentication and authorization, including a Fragment and a Button that manage login state automatically. Login state is cached in SharedPreferences by default. You can serialize sessions to support low memory scenarios; an optional Activity base class makes this automatic. The modular design handles details you don't care about while giving you more control when you need it.

Better Facebook API support

You can now batch SDK requests for Facebook API calls, which translates to much faster access times for parallel API requests. Callbacks and listeners are factored in to better support MVC-style programming. Facebook JSON data can be manipulated with strongly-typed interfaces to reduce coding errors and simplify reading and writing to Facebook.

Mobile install measurement

With our SDK, you can measure clicks and installs for mobile app install ads. Learn more about the mobile ads product.

Android Developer Center

The new Android Dev Center helps you learn the basics, get the tools you need and understand concepts in our SDK. The new content includes:

Getting Started: Get up and running with the SDK.
Tutorial: Walk through building your Facebook integration.
Concepts: Learn the basics of building and growing your app with Facebook.
Reference docs: Start coding with our documentation and sample code.

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

Download the SDK (Beta)