I only use Facebook from my Apple iPhone and have no complaints. Except one. I can’t unfriend people who I realize I don’t want to be connected to on the site. Am I right, or is there a way to unfriend a Facebook friend within the iPhone app?
Ah, the fun of managing your social network connections. As you say, sometimes you friend someone on Facebook (or any other social network) just to realize that they don’t use it the same way you do. If you use the Web interface you can just “hide” their updates so they generally fade into the background, but if you’re using the iPhone app, which could do with a bit of a facelift, then you’re kinda stuck. No way to hide or mute people or discussions, unfortunately.
Except you can unfriend them from within the Facebook iPhone app. Of course, it can be a bit like using a Howitzer to kill a fly if it’s just an annoying update or two, but I’m going to leave the question of when it’s appropriate to you, dear reader, and not worry about whether it’s justified or not. That’s your thing. 🙂
Within the Facebook app, it’s just two taps to go from having a friend to, well, not. I’ll show you by unfriending my friend Shawn Collins (don’t worry, Shawn, I didn’t really unfriend you. You were just a convenient demo guinea pig).
Here I am checking out the News Feed from Facebook on my iPhone:
See that update in the middle, from Shawn Collins? Yeah, I don’t want to follow him any more. I have a pathological hate of anyone who cites cnn.com. Or something like that. 🙂
To unfriend him, I simply tap on his name in the News Feed view and wait as it loads his profile:
See the icon on the top right with the arrow coming out of the square? Tap on it…
There’s what we seek. The red “Unfriend” button. Tap on it and all you have to do is confirm you really want to sever the tie:
One more tap on “Unfriend” and it’s b’bye!
I am not having the option of UNFRIEND on fb though I have an updated version. What should I do??
If I unfriend a facebook contact, will they still be listed as a friend on my iphone facebook or are they totally unfriended? If they are not completely “unfriended”, how do I get them removed from iphone facebook friends?
Ginger, two suggestions: 1. make sure you have the latest version of the Facebook software on your phone and 2. if that doesn’t work, log in to a web browser on a computer and unfriend the twerps 🙂
Dave: instead of that cute little box with the arrow I have a box that says “placeholder” on my iPhone Facebook ap and when I click on it nothing happens so I cannot unfriend obnoxious people who keep posting about stuff they are trying to sell me (insurance, travel and real estate agents: this means u) when i thought they wanted to me to be their friend (not their customer). Any suggestions?
How do you do this for Pages? It doesn’t have the same menu. By the way, I just think you’re great! Love the articles.