[NewsPoster]

The business social media service has updated its iPhone app to LinkedIn 9.0.0, and even if you haven't ever used it, you already know exactly how it works. For this new update is a huge revamp that doubtlessly took the company a lot of work -- once they'd spent 10 minutes looking at Facebook. We all look at Facebook, but we don't make so many notes. Seriously: open the new LinkedIn app, and for a moment you'll think you've tapped on Facebook instead.

Unless you open it on an iPad. Then, you have to turn your head sideways before you can think phrases like deja vu. Much as we like portrait view on iPads, the fact that this version no longer gives you the choice means it feels like an iPhone-only edition. Perhaps this will change, but it contributes to a sense of the developer copying an idea, and giving us a slightly worse experience because of it.

Doubtlessly LinkedIn has gone this route because the old software was confusing to use. It tried to mimic the online version of the service, and at least this way it is now trying to be a mobile app. Yet even though Facebook on iOS is exponentially more popular than LinkedIn, its app is not exactly a wonderful piece of design. Consequently, the new LinkedIn isn't either, and it's still a little confusing to find your way around.

That may be down to muscle memory from how we used to live with the old app, or it might be down to the very DNA of the LinkedIn service. It's the Social Media Platform that Could: never greatly popular, always derided, it tries and tries. So far, that's been enough to see it survive where other services have failed, and so far that has made LinkedIn be the place to be seen on. Not the place to be, and not the place you want to go, but the place to be seen if you have certain types of jobs and careers.

Having this solid base, you can see why it would now go for ease of use or familiarity, something to harness it's features, keep its existing users, and to get new ones. At first glance, it must seem that new users will like it, because they recognize the Facebook elements. Yet it's the Facebook skin on a LinkedIn fac,e and familiarity is not the same as usability.

For existing users, there is a bit of a tedious bump to go through, as the new app requires you to re-enter your login details. There's no tie-in with 1Password, so it's a manual job of finding whatever in the world your username and password are first. You will get your reward for your efforts: you can now use stickers in messages.

Messages are a change from email; it wasn't like a real email service before, but it's now more like a messaging one. We can't quite think whose, but it'll come to us. It's still confusingly poor about notifications: the app forever tells you that you have more notifications than you really do. Right now, for instance, it's insisting away that we have eight notifications or alerts, but when you go into the app, it's one connection request from a total stranger, plus four status or news updates from people we know.

We'd say one plus four falls short of eight, and we've previously put that down to some delay in the app noticing what we've read on the service using our Macs. Yet this is such a new app that we had to re-sign up for it, it has to be retrieving its information from the LinkedIn service, and still it's wrong. It means we just ignore the red badge, and so effectively are notified of nothing. The new version has changed what happens when you tap to see what those four updates are: it shows you one.

Three-quarters of the screen is taken up with a list of people you may know, and what's left is a single update shown in a kind of card index. Read it, swipe to dismiss it, read the rest. There are visual clues that you have more updates to read, but if you happen to try swiping right first, then you think you've found how to get rid of updates you've read. Swiping right moves the latest update to the back of the pile: to actually dismiss it, you must swipe left, and then tap a button.

The idea of having a place that you can catch up with what's happening, to have a briefing for your day as LinkedIn calls it, is good. However, one of the key design goals for this update, reportedly, was to make it easier to find things. So having an inaccurate count, then hiding information we chose to read in favor of information we didn't ask for, and then a swipe system you have to guess at doesn't feel helpful. As with everything else in this release, you can understand because LinkedIn lives on people connecting, so it takes every opportunity to encourage you to connect. That's why it shows you so many total strangers "you might know" and each update you choose to read has a "Reach Out" button that lets you connect to this person you're reading.

We have a problem connecting to people, because now what happens is that you tap on a name and they get sent a contact request using a standard and unchangeable message. You can see that this is quick, that it's handy for people who don't like writing notes, and you can see that it's the same as Facebook's friend request system. However, you've already had this, and you will have it again: you're going to get an invitation to connect to someone over LinkedIn, and you won't have one single clue who they are.

Not to harp on about notifications and contacting people, but as we wrote that paragraph, we got an email from a complete stranger saying they wanted to connect. Go into the LinkedIn app, and nothing happens. We couldn't see a notification anywhere on the front page. Tap on My Network, and there was a connection invitation -- just not the one we'd been notified about. This was also from a stranger, we're very popular today, or at least we are with people who don't work for LinkedIn, and when we dismissed it, we were told that's it, you're up to date, no more invitations.

Only, there was a little red dot in the My Network icon at the top of the screen. Yes: tap that, and we saw the connection request we'd been emailed about. Again and again, maybe this is a syncing thing with the information taking its time to get to the app, but whether it's fast or slow, wrong is wrong.

It doesn't sound like it, but we have warmed to LinkedIn as more people we know are on it, and when we read the stats of how effective it was at reaching people. A great new mobile app would be a boon, but this is not a great new mobile app. We feel we're being harsh, and we couldn't redesign a LinkedIn app, so it's easy to snipe. Yet if we had a go at redesigning it, we wouldn't start by copying Facebook.

LinkedIn 9.0.0 requires iOS 8.0, and is free on the App Store. The LinkedIn service itself is also free for basic use, but offers various premium options that can also be bought via in-app purchases.

Who is LinkedIn 9.0.0 for:
LinkedIn is for business people who need to talk. LinkedIn 9.0.0 is for putting up with. We endorse LinkedIn for copying Facebook.

Who is LinkedIn 9.0.0 not for:
Perhaps it's not for us. We use the service, but don't love it. Maybe if we loved it, we'd know it so well that its confusing sides will make sense, and therefore the new app will too. Maybe there will also be world peace, doves everywhere, and chocolate fountains on every street corner.

-- William Gallagher (@WGallagher)

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