Facebook: The evil app that finally got me addicted to social networking.

I always rolled my eyes.

When my friends would spend hours on Facebook checking peoples' statuses, sending messages, giving "virtual gifts" and racking up thousands of "friends"...

I always rolled my eyes.

It took HAL9000 over four hours to get the lighting emo enough for his profile pic.

Get a life, right?  There has to be something better in this world than an endless parade of social networking.  Only one thing though: there isn't.  Not with the excellent Facebook application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I'll be honest: I'm still not a die-hard Facebooker (Facie? Bookite? FayBoo?), but I've come around to checking in on friends in a non-obtrusive way, finding people I'd lost contact with, and remembering birthdays and important events in my buddies' lives.

And "social networking," by definition, is tailor-made for the iPhone and other mobile devices.  To be able to stay connected on-the-go... well isn't that the reason we all got crazy expensive phones with crazy expensive data plans in the first place?

But with Facebook's huge breadth and depth of features, how can one app actually do justice to the most used social networking utility since snail mail?  I was a skeptic, but now I believe.

The Facebook app is far too feature-laden to really go into detail, so let me just say that I was very surprised at the ease of navigation through all our favorite Facebook features.

Facebook offers it's own mail app, allowing an added level of security when making contact with that guy you last remember being hauled off to juvie.

Across the bottom of the screen, basic menu bottom-tabs allow you to toggle between mail, a list of all friends, your own profile, and a home screen that updates you about your friends' statuses at a glance.  There is even a chat tab that works as well as any other iPhone instant messaging program that I've found.

Within each tab you can find a number of features, all laid out in a very easy-to-use and understandable way.

One thing I really dig about the app, too, is that notification badges are displayed on the bottom-tabs as soon as you open the app, similarly to the way the Mail or Text app notifies you of new messages.  This really helps with at-a-glance Facebooking, ensuring that you can find what you need quickly.

Facebook Notifications keep you up to speed on your friends' lives while on the go.

Across the top of the app in the home screen are a number of different tabs.  Always at-the-ready are the News feed, Notifications, and Friends' Status updates, by far the three most used features.  Cooler than that, though, is the scroll bar directly below the tabs.  Here you can move between all kinds of Facebook add-on apps.  There is really very little left out from the full-sized Facebook.com. [There's also a marginally useful Facebook WepApp, accessible from your iPhone by browsing to m.facebook.com (Safari iPhone will be automatically redirected from Facebook.com). -ed.]

Another cool feature is the ability to upload photos from the app and even change your own icon.  Click the "photo" icon in the top right-hand corner, and you can either take a photo for upload or choose an existing photo from your iPhone Photo Library. This is a fantastic way to get photos onto Facebook quickly.

The app runs very smoothly and load times are very short.

So, is there a downside?  Every once in a while I click on a notification and it doesn't take me to the required application.  This, though, is usually when I am accessing applications from outside sites, so I understand the logic.

Also, Facebook just recently updated their app to the 2.1 version.  Honestly, I didn't see too many changes, but I never really had any bug problems with the original.   Maybe it's just me.

Really, this might be my most-used iPhone app, and I think it was put together beautifully by the Facebook guys and gals.  The only real way to see all the cool stuff they've done with the app is to play with it and--since it's free--I see no reason everyone out there shouldn't at least try it out.  If you are a Facebook fanatic, it won't dissapoint.  And if you are new to social networking, be careful.  This one might get you addicted.  It sure hooked me.

Now, I must simply make sure it does not consume my life and destroy my real-life relationships.  I'm already half way to ruin.  I just have to open a Twitter account and my journey toward the dark side will be complete.