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Facebook Launches "Home" For Android

Posted by timothy on from the hold-you-you're-making-me-quasi dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Facebook has announced "Home" for Android smartphones (and, eventually, tablets). It's something less than a full Facebook mobile operating system, as some expected before the company's presentation, and more like an app update. Facebook also announced the Facebook Home Program, which will work with several carriers and device makers to pre-load Home onto select devices, including ones built by Samsung, Sony, ZTE, and Lenovo. The first "Home" phone will be the HTC First, a $99.99 phone that will ship April 12 from AT&T. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts and journalists assembled for his presentation that Home was designed to reorient the phone and the Facebook mobile experience around people, not apps: "On one level, Home is the next mobile version of Facebook. On the other, it's a change in the relationship with the next generation of computing devices." Home essentially is a custom start screen for your Android phone, replacing the home screen with one centered on Facebook. While users can access other Android apps on the phone, the focus is on those apps that run on the Facebook platform. Home can also be enabled as a lock screen." Reader RougeFemme points out that France Telecom/Orange will be the first carrier in Europe.

9 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Umm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No thank you.

    1. Re:Umm.. by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agreed... and fuck them for their preloading bullshit. ... and they wonder why we want to root our phones...

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  2. When do we return to real tech? by concealment · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The last 15 years of internet dominance have been neat, but it seems like all of the "inventions" are clever ways to interact with each other. Entertainment and consumer products are booming, but what actual technologies are we inventing? Or to put it another way: what opportunities have gone past while we've been inventing toys and minting teenage millionaires?

    1. Re:When do we return to real tech? by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Know that tiny device in your pocket that responds to touch and lets you browse the entirety of human knowledge, play games or work from a beach in Tahiti while still letting you call Mom once a week to let her know you're alive? Yeah, that's what technology we invented in the last 15 years. If that doesn't impress you, I'm not sure what will.

    2. Re:When do we return to real tech? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You should be. We worked hard making components smaller, CPUs more energy efficient, touch screens more reliable, operating systems better suited for mobile environments, improved battery power density, created wireless protocols to support higher data rates, and constructed enough radio towers to support all this.

      You act like it should have happened overnight.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    3. Re:When do we return to real tech? by binary+paladin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the sense that a car is nothing but a "better" version of the first wheeled cart. I mean, what the hell have we been doing for the last 7,000 years? Geez.

  3. So basically a custom launcher by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Android lets you replace the launcher and other component parts and it looks like that is all this Facebook app is doing. Given how intrusive and battery sapping their app is, I think I'll pass.

  4. Geez, two snitches at once... by nweaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rather than having a phone that's designed to spill everything I do to Google, I get a phone designed to spill everything I do to both Google AND Facebook. Geez, loverly.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
  5. *claps* Bravo, Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is impressive. Very, very impressive.

    Not the software - that sounds mediocre at best.

    But the business plan is genius. Without having to create their own OS, they can Borg-ify the majority of existing Android phones out there. By creating their own launcher, they can bury Google features completely, if they so chose to - redirecting most ad-related Android traffic away from Google, and over to Facebook. At the same time, the small group of users who use Google+, who have likely been using the Android app as well, will (I'm guessing) find it much, much easier to post directly to Facebook.

    I can't stand Facebook - and the above sounds horrifying. But I'd put money on this being their strategy.