Hot off my mention of the Live Search application for Windows phones comes “the” Facebook application for Windows phones. I say “the” because similar applications exist, but never were they called “Facebook” (see FriendMobilizer and SkyBook.)

I use http://m.facebook.com right now, which is a trimmed-down Facebook experience, for a 30-second peek into what my family & friends are up to, and to misspell status updates while trying to walk.

This application’s way more, including inline comment balloons & photo/video uploads… a book in the face, if you will… you’ll be spending way more than 30 seconds with this thing.

What I can tell you so far is it does not help with spelling, nor walking. Test results follow:

Anyway, it’s a free download at the Microsoft download site.

Still haven’t figured out how to install applications on a Windows phone? Yeah, neither have the foremost scientists. You can do it. Download & open the file ending in “.cab” from your phone. (Tip: email the link to the .cab file to yourself, then open the message on the phone and click the link.)

Here’s a more in-depth, more serious review: http://www.mobilityminded.com/807/microsoft-facebook-application-for-windows-mobile-phones-step-by-step-overview

I use the Live Search for mobile application to find local business and directions… it’s got maps, pushpins, text search, voice search, find a person, and GPS. Yeah, tons of mobile mapping applications do that.

The different thing about this application is special purpose searches, and in particular, the underappreciated “Collections”:

Here’s how Collections works. You create a collection of points on a map on the web, save it, then find & view the collection on your mobile device. Imagine your vacation: plan out beaches of interest (or restaurants of interest) at home, armed with 16 travel books, websites, and a PC mouse & keyboard… and you can be guided to those points when you’re on vacation by your phone.

You can also search for local collections created by others, although on a phone I think that’s more of a novelty.

The latest version I downloaded has a small, but really important usability improvement. In previous versions, there was self-glorifying banner:

Double-lame.

Worse than the duplication, the banner makes a vertical scrollbar appear, and if you’ve ever used scrollbars… well, I’ve dropped my phone with an overhand throwing motion when trying to use scrollbars.

Well, you’ll see above that the banner’s gone, and the scrollbar with it. Big deal, you say? Now my beloved Collections feature isn’t scrolled off the screen.

You can download this application for Blackberry or Windows Mobile directly to your phone at the Microsoft download site.