Facebook Tip: Changing From Mobile To Desktop View On Your iPad Or Tablet

I can’t live without my tablet. First, I had an iPad and then eventually switched to an ASUS Transformer as my primary gadget. If you are a tablet owner, though, you probably know that apps like Twitter and Facebook treat your tablet as a mobile device by default. Personally, I hate the stripped-down, ad-heavy versions of the Facebook and Twitter apps, so I browse them using the native desktop view in Safari or Chrome.

The challenge is finding a way to get Twitter and Facebook to ignore the fact that I’m on my tablet and serve up the desktop view. It took me an hour of finding workarounds for Twitter and I document the process of switching to the Twitter desktop view (not the mobile view) of Twitter in this blog post.

Facebook can be just as infuriating, too. Most apps have a “Switch To Desktop View” link in their footer navigation, but Facebook doesn’t include one. And to be honest, it takes a small miracle to even see the footer navigation on Facebook because the minute you scroll below the fold, Facebook makes  an AJAX call to add more posts to your timeline (because it thinks you’re browsing back in time) and it loads more posts. The effect is that the footer navigation gets pushed down even further.

So in an effort to not duplicate solutions created by others, I consulted Google and conducted searches for:

tablet switch facebook mobile – Nope. No easy fix.

facebook not mobile version - A couple of technical articles, but no simple solution.

facebook for desktop - Nothing useful.

facebook in standard view - Nope.

desktop facebook on ipad - Nope.

desktop facebook on tablet - AhHah!! Something helpful!

In this post on the ASUS Transformer forums, one user indicates that the standard browser on the Transformer has a checkbox that stops the browser from requesting mobile sites and allows you to browse the web in desktop mode, instead of mobile mode. Brilliant!

To confirm, I checked the settings and there it is…mine was unchecked by default.

Another note, if you don’t use the standard ASUS browser, I also checked that the Firefox mobile browser and the Chrome browser have settings to Request a desktop site. In those browsers, just load up Facebook and then choose the dropdown menu and “Request Desktop Site” in either of these browsers.

But what about iPad users? Is there a way to force Facebook to display the desktop site instead of the mobile site in Safari? The answer is no. But don’t lose hope iPad users. What you can do is download Chrome for the iPad and the “Request Desktop Site” link exists in the iPad app, as well.

I know…not the answer you’re looking for if you’re a hardcore Safari user, but until Apple integrates this feature in their browser, this is the best workaround there is.

I hope these tips help!

Cheers!

–Sean