At this point, I guess you’ve figured out there’s no official Facebook iPad app nor does Zuckerberg plan to tell his team to start developing one. Or perhaps we just have to wait a little bit more, as Facebook is currently focused on mobile devices and the iPad isn’t exactly a mobile device. No matter how you look at it, there is no Facebook for iPad and we have to rely on 3rd party offers when it comes to status updates and photo galleries on world’s most crowded social network running on the iPad.

Up until now, Friendly for Facebook has been the most successful unofficial app for iPad to land in the App Store, and sales of the app sky-rocketed with the recent release of a major update. A new 3rd party Facebook app was released yesterday, it’s called Buddies and simplifies the way you can check on your Facebook contacts on the iPad. All wrapped up in an interesting native interface with noteworthy features and curious navigation schemes. Let’s take a look at it.

While Friendly takes a wider approach at Facebook integration by aiming at being the one-stop solution to use Facebook on the iPad, I think Buddies is more an excellent companion to the regular website which offers neat photo uploading capabilities (something you can’t do on Mobile Safari) and multi-account support. Most users will use Buddies as a Facebook client, but to me this looks like a great way to check on your contacts’ photos and status updates. Thus the name Buddies.

Based on the Matt Legend Gemmel’s MGSplitViewController open source code, Buddies features a split-view design that puts your contacts at the top as a scrollable list of profile pictures and  status updates or photo galleries below it whether you’re holding the iPad in landscape or portrait mode. Once you’ve logged in (like I said, multiple accounts are supported and you can add as many as you want at any given time from the Accounts menu) you’ll be presented a list of your friends and all the status updates from the Facebook wall. In landscape mode, the wall’s updates are on the left; in portrait mode, you’ll be able to see photos from the wall, but text updates will be hidden. That’s an acceptable trade-off.

You can comment both on status updates and photos, and of course you can like items. By tapping on a profile picture in the top list, you’ll directly jump to that user’s wall containing updates and photos – just like in the main screen. The app feels consistent throughout all its part, which is good. The UI design takes cues from Facebook’s popular blue and white shades, and while Buddies tries to wrap it all up inside a fresh native look most iPad users will be familiar with, I think Buddies could use some refinements. Don’t get me wrong: it looks nice. But it lacks that ultimate layer of awesomeness apps such as Reeder, Twitterrific and Times have got us hooked up to.

Interface and navigation methods aside, the app does just what it’s supposed to: it lets you quickly check on stuff posted by your contacts. In the top toolbar, you can search for a specific contact (which, again, will open his Facebook wall), refresh, post a status update or upload photos. Here’s where Buddies really outstands the competition: you can upload a single photo or create a new album by batch-uploading pics. By integrating an advanced cache system with the regular stream, Buddies also enables you to check out status updates and pictures when you’re not online – which is nice if you don’t have a 3G iPad. You can also create albums offline, and they’ll be uploaded once you jump back on the internet.

So, Buddies. I’m not really the biggest Facebook fan and I log in the website only a couple of times a day to check on my closest friend’s updates – I don’t spend hours on it nor do I play games with my contacts. I don’t upload god knows how many pictures either, and I can’t remember the last time I created an album. Perhaps it was sometime last summer. I have to admit, though, that Buddies is a good app which I’m sure many iPad owners who daily play with Facebook will enjoy. It sports a nice design, interesting features and the offline caching system is neat.

At $2.99 in the App Store, give it a try if you really depend on Facebook as much as Mark Zuckerberg wants you to.