Facebook's new iOS app comes with iPhone 5 support

Facebook has released a new iOS app just in the nick of time.

The app's update, released today, comes with support for iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 just as folks are trying to get their hands on Apple's latest device.

Facebook boasts faster scrolling for the news feed, a new banner you can tap to see more stories, and the ability to open and close photos with a downward swipe.

The update also coincides with updates to two of Facebook's Android apps -- the main Facebook app and Facebook Messenger.

This trio of updates is an illustration of Facebook's new mobile app strategy -- timed releases for frequent tweaks that the company hopes make a better product overall. Facebook executives said at a recent press event that the company plans to update its iOS app every eight weeks and the Android app every four weeks.

"Shipping mobile software is inherently different than shipping Web software -- the stakes are higher," Facebook Engineer Christian Legnitto wrote in the developer's blog today. "It's easier for code to cause an app crash on mobile than bring down an entire site on the Web. And with Web software you can roll out gradually and make updates before you roll out to the majority of users. With mobile software we don't have these luxuries. That means we have to hold ourselves to an even higher quality bar."

He said a date-driven release schedule means users can get stability, speed, and feature improvements as they are ready instead of waiting longer for a bundle of improvements all at once.