Buddies for Facebook is a neat app for the iPad we reviewed in November which provides a quick and easy way to check on your Facebook friends. With an interface based on a “split view” aimed at letting you navigate across all the sections of Facebook, there’s no doubt Buddies is one of the most curious and innovative way to use Facebook on the tablet.

The latest 1.15 update, released last night, improves the app’s integration with Facebook by adding support for Chat. To access the chat interface, you have to tap on an icon in the upper right corner in the main page. The app will “rotate” its UI to accomodate a new page with all your online friends. To start chatting, you tap on a contact and tap again to initiate the conversation. That’s it. The app allows you to switch back and forth between your friends lists and it’s pretty fast at switching between the main screen and the chat UI, too.

At $2.99 in the App Store, Buddies may not have all the features of Friendly (which happens to have a free version available now) but it’s got the feel of something new and specifically geared towards iPad users. It’s not just a webpage wrapped around an app, it’s a native version of Facebook that now comes with Facebook Chat integration.

Give it a try.