For many, many moons Facebook’s iOS app was maligned as one of the worst apps from a major company in the App Store. While it was at least functional (at times), people had a point. It was slow, clunky, and apt to crash at any given moment. Photos took days to upload, and scrolling was a nightmare.

Then, after many rumors, Facebook finally updated their iOS app. “Updated” is not really right word here, as they completely rebuilt it from the ground up. They abandoned HTML-5 for Objective-C in order to increase one thing: speed.

“Facebook 5.0 for iOS is twice as fast as the previous version when launching the app, scrolling through news feed and opening photos in feed,” said Facebook on launch day. “We’ve rebuilt the app from the ground up, so now the app opens much faster and your news feed and notifications load right when you open Facebook.”

And the early reviews? Good, for the most part. Most people noticed a dramatic improvement over previous versions of the app. From personal experience, I’ve noticed the app is quicker in almost every single way and the photo viewing experience is the best among almost all of my social media apps.

Today, Facebook says that the new iOS app has been a huge success. According to Mobile product manager Mick Johnson, half of Facebook for iOS users updated their apps within the first four days of release.

And that all-important App Store score? Rehabilitated. In just over three weeks, the score has jumped from 1.5 stars to 4 stars.

With Facebook for iOS 5.0, Facebook may have finally built a mobile app they can be proud of. What do you think about it?

[via TechCrunch]