Kien Tran’s Daily Blog

UPDATE Below about phone number lookups

UPDATE 2 Below about "nicknames"

The App Store finally released the latest version of the Facebook iPhone app, version 3.1. It now has the long awaited push notifications for Facebook notifications, and includes a bonus feature, contact book syncing.

Since I'm sure there will be some reservation as to what the syncing involves, I've graciously risked my entire contact book to try it out for you! =D

After a (lengthy for me) sync operation, Facebook simply takes your entire contact list and matches it first name-last name to your Facebook contacts. From there it downloads the current profile picture and inserts (or replaces as wanted) the picture into the contact card on your phone. It also adds a homepage with a fb://profile link for direct linking to the Facebook app itself.

One thing it has problems with are friends who get married and change their names on Facebook without my changing it on my phone itself, (and probably vice versa).

Also, if the name is not and exact match, it will fail.

I wish it would auto insert missing phone numbers and emails onto my phone for contacts if the information on Facebook is normally visible.

I don't know if the iPhone app will upload your book to Facebook and allow them to collect more information from you than you'd like, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

UPDATE: The app does compare registered phone numbers in your contact lists, even if the name is totally wrong.  What this means is it will link contacts based on phone numbers registered with Facebook mobile, even if you are not friends!  So beware giving out fake or wrong numbers because you can link to someone else! *cough*ladies*cough*