The option to import and sync your Facebook contacts with Ubuntu One has been switched off.
Although Facebook contact sync was not one of Ubuntu One’s headline features it proved a useful tool for those not keen on the idea of manually creating their entire address book from scratch.
The impact of the removal is expected to be minimal at worst.
If you used the feature before today then your contacts will remain available to add, edit and delete from the Ubuntu One Website, you just won’t be able to hook-up back up to your Facebook account.
And if you never used the feature then you’re losing precisely nothing.
Out with the slow, in with the new
Ubuntu One developers cite the continuing need to ‘improve our services, make updates and launch new features’ as reason for its removal.
Part of improving means upgrading parts of the service that are either outdated or in need of updating. Much of the current Contacts service, including the Facebook sync, relies on an older version of the “data sync infrastructure”.
Over the coming months Contacts will be built upon the new ‘U1DB’ framework, giving it a more malleable base for future features to be added.
There is currently no word if the Facebook sync will be brought back as part of this.
The paring back of Contacts is not the only change to have affected the Ubuntu One Web Dashboard this year. Earlier this year the online Notes feature was removed, with developers blaming the lack of resources and time needed to improve it.
Did you use Facebook sync in Contacts?