When Facebook announced a special ‘awesome’ event last week, the rumors of an announcement of a dedicated iPad app immediately sprang up.  Would the social network fill that hole in their line-up?  Now the event has run we’ve got our answer, and it’s no.

What they did announce was group chat, a new chat design and video calling in association with Skype.  During the preamble, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an interesting comment regarding applications, suggesting that instead of them juggling lots of different tasks, it should be left to third-party developers to come up with the goods.

Mark Zuckerberg’s words went something like this: ‘we want to leave all the different types of apps, or as many as possible, to the independent entrepreneurs and companies who are going to be best in class’.  We just believe…that those who focus on one type of thing will always do better than a company trying to do a million things’.  ‘We’re building the infrastructure, and enabling others to build world-class apps’.

Could this mean the company won’t be bothering with a dedicated app for Apple’s tablet?  That they consider the various Facebook apps written by others are all good enough?  Perhaps, but it’s strange given how much the iPad 2 fits with these newly announced features.

There wasn’t much talk of mobile usage during the event itself, odd seeing as Facebook and Skype having a strong mobile presence and such a service could challenge Apple’s own FaceTime.  However a CNET reporter did ask a question regarding mobile during the after-announcement session, and the response was negative for video calling, but positive for group chat.  The message, essentially, was ‘wait and see’.

Is it wait and see what Facebook will do, or wait and see what third-party developers come up with?