Fuubo: Finally a Weibo App for Android That Isn’t Fugly

As much as we enjoy using the lively (though oft-gagged) Chinese social network that is Sina Weibo, the official Weibo app is a bit of a UI mess. Worse still, not a single third-party Weibo app for Android has raised the bar in terms of design, all of them looking and feeling like apps that might’ve been developed about half a decade ago. But now that changes. Over the weekend I tried out the new Fuubo app, and got an eyeful of its gorgeous, properly Holo interface that fits in perfectly with Android 4.0.

Fuubo is essentially just an app for Weibo. It finally brings a very modern Android design experience to the Chinese social service, sort of like Falcon Pro or Carbon for Twitter. It has all the slidey panels and subtle textures of a well-made app, coupled with the main Weibo features like comments, reposts, and notifications.

The new app is lacking a few things that Weibo users might need. At the moment Fuubo lacks direct messaging support, trends or social searches, and is only in Chinese. As fugly as Sina’s own Weibo app might be, it at least has an English interface. Other third-party apps for Weibo, such as Weico or Yibo, or the iPhone-only Moke, look pretty good, but they’ve now been outshone by Fuubo.

Here’s the pop-over controller and a profile view:

And this is the panel sliding the other way, along with the Weibo writing area:

Fuubo is free in the Google Play store.