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Well, actually Facebook is not building a phone nor an operating system but, something a whole lot deeper than just an ordinary application. The home screen is really the soul of your phone.
One of the core features to Facebook’s Home platform is that notifications are based on people rather than apps; it shifts attention away from tasks and apps to their friends instead.
One feature that predominantly integrates Facebook’s messaging service is Chat Heads. Similar to Apple’s iMessage for iOS devices, Chat Heads basically merges Facebook Messenger and SMS conversations for individual contacts.
In one fell swoop, Facebook has attempted to establish itself as the core messaging and communication platform on Android. Yep, they have chosen little “Andrew” as their O.S.
That could end up presenting serious competition not only for service providers when it comes to texting, but also Android’s maker, running up against the combination of Gmail, Google Chat and Google Plus.
Facebook Home for Android can be downloaded from Google Play. It will be rolling out for at least five Android smartphones first, but support on tablets won’t follow for at least several months. Nevertheless, Facebook execs promised that new features for Home will roll out every month.
For many people, Facebook is the Internet, and Facebook is the best way for them to experience the Internet in a browser, Facebook Home is going to be the best way for those people to experience the Internet on a phone.
The product that Facebook chose to roll this out on, the HTC First is not one of the best phones of the market but works well. Well enough to support this, what is going to soon be aworldwide app. Facebook simply needed to show something that makes it easy to connect, consume and share more content with your friends. It did that. That dive-into Facebook home screen is the only thing that matters — you don’t even have to unlock your screen to dig into social. So who cares if Facebook Home makes its debut on average hardware? No one!
Like Facebook, your phone, at its most basic level, is designed to connect you with other people and deliver information. Like Facebook, it is a messaging system that also has applications. The first phone with Facebook Home doesn’t need to amaze. It just has to work. It just needs to prove that it’s good enough at letting you upload pictures of your kid, etc.
And most importantly, this thing is flexible. You can install it yourself, which means Facebook Home will run on at first a few, and then lots and lots of Android handsets. And there are an enormous and growing number of Android handsets out there, with more coming.
Android is already the world’s most dominant mobile operating system (OS). In the coming year there are going to be hundreds of millions of Android handsets sold, the HTC First with Facebook Home is going to tempt a lot of people who love Facebook (AKA: the Easier Internet). The HTC First may be the first Android handset to come with Facebook Home loaded, but it certainly won’t be the last. Before long, you can bet you’ll be able to pick up a handset with Facebook Home pre-installed for free.
Facebook is really good at tracking you. And by all appearances this phone is good at that too. It’s going to know where you are, who you’re talking to and when, even what apps you’re running. All of which is great for Facebook, because ultimately Facebook wants to know every little thing it can about you so it can get you to click on some ads.
Facebook Home doesn’t even have to be a hit. At least not right away. The important thing is that it’s out there, and it didn’t require a lot of up-front capital. It’s a better strategy than anything else the company has done in mobile. People who already really like Facebook will also like this. For people who live in Facebook, it may even drive them to buy one handset over another.
Facebook big guns think this (HOME) is the best version of Facebook there is. Of its 1.06 billion monthly users, 680 million log in to Facebook using a mobile gadget. Do you?
