Facebook Adds Offline News Feed To Mobile App So You’ll Never Miss Another Baby Photo, Gym Status Again

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You’re trapped on the subway, and the panic sets in: what is that high school acquaintance doing today? Is he/she going to the gym and THEN the grocery store or vice versa? Does your friend in Nevada’s baby like eating avocado upon first try or not? These questions will all be answered, now that Facebook is enabling an offline mode on its mobile app that allows users to browse their News Feeds even when their connection is slow or nonexistent.

Facebook announced today that users will be able to not only like and share posts while offline in the mobile app, which is something they can do currently, but they’ll also see new posts in their NewsFeed even when their service is shoddy.

Any comments users write while they’re offline will post once they’ve reconnected, the company wrote in a blog post. Because you cannot forget to tell that girl you went to camp with in 1999 how happy you are to know that she’s checked in at the Cheesecake Factory after her usual gym, tanning and laundry routine.

“These changes will help anyone who is on a poor internet connection — even those whose network connectivity is generally good but who have intermittent connections in places like subways and tunnels, or at large events,” the company wrote.

Here’s how it’ll work, according to Facebook: instead of offline users seeing a spinning icon when they’ve reached the end of their available newsfeed, the update that’s being tested would look at all the previously downloaded stories on your phone and rank them based on their relevance. Then it’ll factor in whether the images are available, and then show you relevant stories you haven’t seen it.

Once you’re back online and Facebook receives new stories, it’ll load and rank those stories normally.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist