Facebook has launched a new iOS app, with the spotlight very much on speed.

By ditching HTML5 in favour of Objective-C the company claims to have doubled the app’s speed in launching, scrolling news feeds and opening photos, thereby addressing the number one gripe of most Facebook mobile users.

Facebook’s iOS mobile product manager Mick Johnson tells TechCrunch, “We feel the pain points [regarding slowness] pretty harshly ourselves…so this major update to the Facebook for iOS app is focused on one thing — speed.”

Facebook doesn’t say it, of course, but the new app should also help its mobile advertising prospects. A better user experience means more eyeball time for its 130 million Facebook for iOS users, while ads will also load quicker.

Naturally, the same logic applies to Facebook’s tardy Android app, although it looks like Android users might not have too long to wait for their own update: Johnson tells TechCrunch that they can expect “similar interesting developments on Android” soon.