Couple of months ago whole online news sources was filled with Facebook phone and Facebook OS. Then Mark sends out invitation to the big event “Facebook Home” on Android. It clarified some of the concerns we had. But still many people expected that Facebook will release an Android powered phone.
But they are smarter than that. No point of putting tons of money and effort to manufacture a new phone/OS and make it popular. They decided to plug in to a popular, well established system with millions of phones.
Finally Facebook home was announced officially as an Android launcher, a new theme for Android OS. The idea is to make your phone about people rather than apps. In other words, in this new theme, once you unlock the phone you can see people, your Facebook friends, their status updates and images etc, not app shortcuts.
Currently Facebook Home launcher is available for selected few phones including HTC One X/X+, HTC First (has Facebook Home off the box), Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II.
Features in Facebook Home
Cover Feed
Lock screen is not a lock screen any more. Once you lock the phone you can see time for a while and it will fade away. In full screen you can see your Facebook cover feed with status updates, images and other news. Images will be scrolled slowly to left or right and you can swipe to see the next item.
You can double tap to like and access comment as a pop up. If you press and hold the phone it will zoom out to see the whole thing. For all these events there is a nice sound effect.
Chat Heads
Once you receive a Facebook message it will appear as a bubble with senders profile photo. You can move this bubble around, but it will always get anchored to the nearest edge. This bubble stays on the screen till you close it no matter what app you are using.
You can tap on the chat head to open the conversation and tap again to minimize. Drag it to bottom corner to close it. All these are accompanied with very interesting physics and sounds.
Do We Really Need Facebook Home?
You will definitely ask this big question. Do I really need it? I already have Facebook app and it works just fine. The answer is simple.
If more than 90% of your Smartphone contact time is spent on Facebook, this would be a great idea for you. Once you unlock the phone, Bam! There you have Facebook cover feed.
If you consider Facebook only as an app which you access occasionally this is certainly not for you. You may use this for few days, but I’m pretty sure you will go back to stock launcher.
Tags: #Android #Facebook #Social Networks