Once again the Facebook Phone rumours did not end up being true. At its Thursday press event, Facebook introduced its “new home on Android.” However, unlike the predictions, the company did not unveil a smartphone, but a mobile application.
Read more:
- New Facebook Phone Details Emerge on the Web
- Facebook to rival Apple’s iPhone with an Android smartphone
What is it?
The Facebook event offered little surprises or even none at all. As it was already reported earlier this week, Zuckerberg and his team showed off a new-generation FB app for Android devices. The name of the application is Facebook Home, which is again information that had already leaked in the web. According to the company, Facebook Home is not a phone, but a “software experience” for Android devices. It is neither an operating system, but rather a “family of apps.”
HTC’s Role
HTC will release the first smartphone with a built-in version of Facebook’s new app. The device will be available for purchase starting April 12 at the price of $99. The phone’s name is easy to remember – HTC First.
Main Features
Facebook Home’s key features are Cover feed, Chat heads, Notification and Apps. The different thing about this application is that it will add a more expanded Facebook integration to your Android device. With it, users will be able to check all their FB news just by flipping and sliding on their screen.
The main feature of Facebook Home is Cover feed. It will replace the home and lock screens of your Android smartphone. In that way, you will see your updates as soon as you look at the display of you device.
The next function of Facebook’s new-generation application is Chat heads. It will enable users to chat with their FB friends even if they are currently running a different app. Chat heads will also deliver Facebook messages and texts.
Notifications is a feature that should be more familiar to Facebook users. Through it, Facebook Home will notify you whenever a friend posts on your wall, uploads a picture of you and etc. The notifications will come in the form of the profile picture of your friend.
Facebook Home will also support apps. You can install and view them just by a simple swipe which will open the application launcher.
Facebook Home on Other Devices
Apart from being available on HTC First, the app will be also added to Google Play Store on April 12. However, for now the application will not run on all Android devices. It will only be available for a limited range of smartphones. Among them are HTC First, HTC One, HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 2. However, the company assures that in a few months it will add many more phones, as well as tablets. In addition, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared that he has the ambition to offer Facebook Home on more operating systems, including Apple’s iOS. Nevertheless, he did not give any specific prognosis on when that could happen.
Skepticism
But why would users switch to Facebook Home when they already have the Facebook app and the Messenger app. The social network’s new product seems to quite bulky in size and it may fill your device’s storage. Also, there are already concerns that the application will violate users’ privacy and that it will turn into an ad machine.
Will the Facebook Home attract users? We will find out pretty soon. Facebook turns into something similar to Google search engine and all the innovation it introduces do not make that much sense from that perspective.
