Tumblr releases native iOS app with improved performance, dashboard, and notifications

Following Facebook’s much-improved native version of its iOS app, Tumblr has become the latest service to ditch web views for a ground-up rewrite. The update comes with a host of improvements, the biggest of which is the new dashboard view with faster performance and bigger images. GIFs play automatically, and perhaps most importantly you can now view them frame-by-frame by swiping from left to right.

There’s also a redesigned notification panel which lets you see exactly which post was liked or reblogged — an improvement over the main website — and there are new blog screens that show portraits and descriptions. We’ll say what we did the last time Tumblr overhauled its iOS app, which is that we’d still like true iPad support, but this is a welcome update nevertheless.