Inside Facebook

Facebook has launched a native iPhone Facebook application today along with the much-awaited launch of Apple’s iPhone 3G, iPhone software 2.0, and iPhone App Store.

While the Facebook for iPhone site has been available for nearly a year (and according to its creator Joe Hewitt has over 1.5 million active users), the Facebook iPhone application will run faster and have more features integrated with the iPhone’s built-in capabilities.

As of today, you can take photos with your iPhone and post them to your Mobile Uploads album on Facebook and use Facebook Chat. In the future, Facebook says it will enable users to take advantage of the iPhone’s GPS capabilities by sharing their location with friends and finding friends nearby.

We’re likely to see a lot of exciting “find near me” iPhone apps in the coming months, but Facebook is in a unique position to become the leading “friend finder” application because of the size and accuracy of its current social graph. Loopt also launched an iPhone application today.

The Facebook for iPhone app will work with the original iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPhone 3G. You can download it now using your iPhone or iPod Touch from Apple’s App Store.