It may be the world’s most popular social network but thus far Facebook has no official presence on the iPad.

That could be about to change however after technology site TechCrunch reported that one of its bloggers had unearthed code for a Facebook iPad app hidden inside the Facebook iPhone app.

MG Siegler said: “Yes, it’s real, and it’s spectacular… And yes, it really is right there within the code… For the past couple hours, I’ve been using Facebook’s iPad app. Well, I should qualify this. I can’t be sure if this is the version they’ll actually ship, but based on everything I’ve seen, I’m going to assume it’s at least very close to the version they’re going to ship.

“In particular, the navigation system is great. Unlike the iPhone app… the Facebook iPad app uses a left-side menu system that can be accessed by the touch of a button or the flick of the iPad screen,” says Siegler.

“The app also makes great use of the pop-overs (overlay menus) found in other iPad apps. When you flip the iPad horizontally, the list of your online friends appears and you can chat with them as you do other things on Facebook. The photo-viewer aspect looks great — similar to the iPad’s own native Photos app. Places exists with a nice big map to show you all your friends around you.