By Tony Bradley, PCWorld

LinkedIn already had one of the better iPhone apps, but it went back to the drawing board and developed a completely new app with more functionality--for both iPhone and Android.
If you already have the LinkedIn app on your iPhone or Android
smartphone, you should update it. If you don't already have the LinkedIn
app, it's time you did.

When I first joined LinkedIn
many moons ago, I looked at it as sort of a Monster.com job site with
the added benefit of the sort six degree of separation that would allow
me to leverage my network of contacts to find a new or better job if
need be. I didn't really consider it a social network in the Facebook
sense of the word, but really more of a professional networking and job
hunting service.

LinkedIn rolled out a new and improved version of its iPhone and Android apps.A
lot has changed since then, though--both in the evolution of social
networking, and in LinkedIn itself. The site remains as a professional
or business-oriented social network, but it has adapted and expanded to
become a much more useful site that goes beyond job hunting. As a
writer, it is a great source of expert commentary and insight for
articles, and as a business professional it is an awesome tool for
sharing information in a social network setting without the Zynga games,
and other silly things that seem to come with other social networks
like Facebook or Google+.

A blog post from LinkedIn
unveiling the new mobile app(s) explains, "LinkedIn Mobile page views
have grown more than 400% year-over-year, making it the fastest growing
consumer service on LinkedIn."

With that in mind, LinkedIn has redesigned the mobile app to
improve the experience. Here are three reasons you should be using the
new LinkedIn app (assuming you use LinkedIn...and have an iPhone or
Android smartphone):

1. Simpler and Faster. The previous LinkedIn app was already one of
my favorites, but it had 12 different icons to choose from. The new
interface is much cleaner, and more polished, and it reduces the number
of options to four. LinkedIn also managed to streamline performance and
boost speeds from two to ten times faster than the previous LinkedIn
app.

2. LinkedIn Groups. The new app lets you access and interact with
your LinkedIn Groups. You can read and participate in ongoing Group
discussions, or add new discussions from the iPhone.

3. Updates. The old LinkedIn app had a button to access "All
Updates", so this isn't entirely new. But, the Updates button on the new
LinkedIn app delivers a more visually appealing experience and quick
access to both Recent Updates from your own LinkedIn network, as well as
the LinkedIn Today news headlines.

The new LinkedIn app seems to have taken a good thing and make it
even better. Now, if LinkedIn would just take that same ingenuity and
creativity and develop an equivalent iPad app I'll be all set.