I just got off the phone with my mom. She said that Facebook wasn’t working on her iPad. Specifically, she couldn’t pinch the screen to zoom in and out. I verified the problem on my wifes iPad.

I started to dig a bit deeper into the issue. It appears that Facebook had intentionally added code onto their site to disable the zoom feature on iPads. You can read Apples documentation on how to do this here.

The question really isn’t how they did it, but why would Facebook would do this? This doesn’t seem like an accident.

Reasons why Facebook has disabled screen zooming on the iPad:

• Today, 10/20/10, was a major announcement day for Apple. It’s possible that Facebook wanted to humiliate Apple or make the iPad look weak.

• Android and Backberry tablets are set to be released soon. It’s possible that Facebook could have been paid off by one of Apples competitors to make the iPad not work so great with their site.

• Facebook has realized that hardly anyone with an iPad uses the iOS Facebook app. Maybe the are trying to force users to use the app. Personally I think the Facebook app is garbage, it’s not even designed for the iPad!

• It could have been an honest mistake. However, I don’t think this is the case. If this was a mistake, Facebook could have fixed it in a matter of minutes.

I’d love to hear some of your reasons on why Facebook is doing this to iPad users around the world.