Business social networking site LinkedIn is trying to make up for lost time with the redesign of its mobile app. The iOS and Android app, which has received little love from members to date, has been reduced to five core functions: Your Feed, Me, My Network, Messaging, and Search.

The new version of LinkedIn's flagship app is “more intuitive, smarter and dramatically simplifies your LinkedIn experience,” Joss Redfern, vice president of product for LinkedIn, said in a blog post. The app, which has been available as preview since October, is available for download now.

More Personalized Information

Among the changes in the new design is the home tab, titled Your Feed. This section of the app hosts content that has been curated by LinkedIn and targeted to individual users. “It’s based on what we determined is most relevant for your industry, function, and skills combined with what conversations and content you care about,” Redfern said.

The Me section is essentially the app’s profile page, where users can view and make changes to their personal information. Users will also be able to see related information, such as which other users have viewed their profiles, who is commenting on them, or sharing their posts.

My Network, meanwhile, acts as a daily briefing, summarizing recent activity from the users' professional networks, including people they may know, new posts written by people in their networks, and alerts to notify them when connections have been promoted or are celebrating work anniversaries.

Users will also be able to sync their calendars to the app, which will remind them of events such as upcoming meetings. It will also prompt users to review the profiles of people slated to attend the meetings, including details about common interests and shared connections.

Revamped Messaging and Better Search Functionality

Possibly the biggest change to the app is the Messaging function. Instead of functioning as one more e-mail account, the updated feature is designed more along the lines of an instant messaging platform to facilitate faster, more casual conversations. “This makes it easy for you to ping someone in your network on a quick question or continue a conversation as you would in real life,” according to Redfern.

The company also said it has made significant upgrades to its search functionality. According to LinkedIn, Search is now 300 percent faster than in the previous version of the app. The company also said that the new search function is “a lot smarter,” making it easier for users to quickly find people, jobs and groups. Like other search engines, users will be able to see results even before they've finished typing.

LinkedIn said the new version of its flagship app is more in line with the company’s multi-app strategy by keeping the focus on itself rather than its other apps, such as Pulse, Groups, and Job Search. Nevertheless, users will be able to launch those apps directly from the flagship app.