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Facebook Home Flagship Phone, HTC First, May Be Discontinued
zacharye writes "The HTC First, or 'Facebook phone' as many prefer to call it, is officially a flop. It certainly wasn't a good sign when AT&T dropped the price of HTC's First to $0.99 just one month after its debut, and now BGR has confirmed that HTC and Facebook's little experiment is nearing its end. BGR has learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTC First have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone. Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTC First, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC. How much unsold inventory is there? We don’t have an exact figure, but things aren’t looking good. According to our source, AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide through last week when the phone’s price was slashed to $0.99."
They should have charged extra and made them sign up for a waiting list.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
chop chop editors ..
I thought that the Facebook phone would have been the ultimate iPhone killer. It is, after all, the social media age and Facebook integration should have ensured success.
Color me surprised.
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...
Even the BlinkFeed missed it, it came and went so fast.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Once everyone's pet, mom and grandma jumped on facebook it began its decline. Now its just a marketing platform, not unlike slashdot since its acquisition by dice.
The facebook phone is about as relevant as a FROSTY PISS.
I see an open market for some new hardware to hack.
The Facebook phone flops like few phones have ever flopped. Zuckerberg's lobbying group is collapsing like few lobbying groups have ever collapsed (http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/12/why-zuckerbergs-lobby-fwd-is-collapsing-like-a-house-of-cards-outside-of-dc/).
Many of us are stuck with Facebook due its powerful networking effects (much like AT&T in the old days). But still the FB brand is renowned as being member-abusive, terrible about privacy, cavalier about interface changes and wiping out settings, etc. Perhaps this is a sign that few people are interested in letting FB expand its grip on their lives.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
A lot of people are dropping Facebook. The key demographic that this phone targeted are the ones leaving in droves.
let's make the stock price go down.
Not an android user, but is it possible to wipe the facebook front end and just add generic android rom to it?
HTC - Horrible Taiwanese Crap
Seriously has anyone ever had a positive experience with an HTC?
captcha: cellular
Is it normal for a contract between a carrier and an OEM to be structured such that unsold inventory would be sent back to the OEM?
Logistically, that seems like it would be pretty wasteful(especially since there presumably exists an 'Android-base-build' firmware that HTC put together before adding 'Home' on, so they could push that over the internet and convert the units in the field into perfectly servicable stock-Android handsets, in about the time it takes AT&T sales to sell an overpriced case and insurance plan), unless the contract is sufficiently one-sided that HTC was begging AT&T to offer shelf space and accepting all the downside risk in exchange for whatever margin they managed on sales...
Is HTC just too weak to get decent deals? Is it normal for the carrier to not outright buy the phone until they sell it? How does that channel work?
I really don't see how Facebook can go but down. It's not cool new thing. Everyone capable enough to use it from phone already does it. How many people are there without smartphones and with active Facebook account?
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
...the ONLY reason they have the number of users that they do is because everyone's friends are on Facebook.
People do not like Facebook. They hate the lack of security, the constant changing of format, the increasingly annoying advertising, etc, etc, etc.
One day (and I believe it will be soon), a viable alternative will appear and their collective mass of users will leave practically overnight.
No one loves Facebook. Its not cool. Its just where everyone is hanging until something better comes along.
Word game?
Can anybody name me a smartphone that doesn't have Facebook integration already? It's hard to build a phone around a killer feature when literally every competitor already has that feature.
I read the internet for the articles.
Maybe that's one of the reasons why it flopped?
There was a translation problem when the order came in,
"We want a smart, flip-phone" got translated to "We want a smart, flopped-phone".
And boy, did HTC deliver!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
People don't get sucked into a "gadget" when they have real needs. Users want a product with a real answer they can RELY on.
If it was really that price it would have sold, the reality was that you needed a contract to get one.
Hold on, to your brand new phone
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this carrier is stringing us along
Just know you've got a phone
It's too bad your running home
Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the carriers
They fill you with fear
On your screen you can still drag and drop
and the ads they will never stop
Just know you’re not alone
Lots of other people's phones run home
Settle down, wipe the cache clear
your carriers
They fill you with fear
There are plenty of mods all around
If you get lost, help can always be found
Just know you’re not alone
Cause lots of people jailbreak their phones....
They might have been better off when sales started taking if they highlighted it's just a launcher on an Android based phone and not a full blown Operating System. The problem was the launcher was optimized to enhance social networking and (from what I hear) wasn't good at working with other Apps.
This is a bad hit for HTC. The specs on the hardware are pretty good, so dumping a re-flash to the feature phone market is going to hurt. I don't think there's been a fail like this snce the MS Kin.
This was a stupid idea anyway. I don't know of any smartphone that doesn't have some sort of Facebook integration. It's just too bad that Samsung wasn't the one making these devices. I'd rather see them lose money than HTC.
I have nothing clever to put here...
How long before they're offered as TracFone's for $19.95 with 20 minutes free?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Because, really, there was never a 'Facebook' phone in the first place. It was just an annoying app launcher that should never have been bundled with a phone. This also demonstrates the sheer power that the default app launcher has to make or break perfectly fine hardware. Even though the customer can easily replace the launcher, bundling a phone with a messed up launcher basically destroys sales of the phone.
Vendors try to lock people into these sorts of things all the time, it just usually isn't quite so blatant and most people don't even realize that it is happening. Buy a Motorola phone and you get some minor but interesting stuff that is generic but locked into the platform (can't be downloaded and run on other android phones). Same with all vendors, but they have to tread carefully or risk alienating their entire user base. The FB stuff was so in-your-face that even a 5-year-old could turn away from the foul stench.
-Matt
You would be out $350. Unless you are a sucker and somehow believe that AT&T is giving you the phone for $0.99 out of the goodness of their heart.
I've got an older HTC Supersonic and I could go for a 0.99 upgrade as long as I could move it over to my current Sprint account. Why can't this be unlocked and reflashed with a decent version of Android?
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Sure, the price is dropped to less than a dollar, but you'd be paying the phone back twice in the monthly contract fees. Wake me up when the phone is 99 cents without a contract or a lock.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I think you're probably correct about the lack of brand loyalty. Might most people think of Facebook roughly the way they think of email, or the telephone? Everyone has is, except some people who like to say they don't have it, since for some things it's the normal / easiest way to do something. It's just a utility though, and a better utility will replace it when it gets enough momentum.
I guess the brain dead teenagers
Teenagers don't use Facebook (though they have an account). Their parents do (which is why they don't), but it's most popular with the 18-24 and 25-35 groups.
This being a GSM AT&T phone might be a big roadblock in you activating it on Sprint's CDMA network
They might have only sold 15,000 units but for those that bought them it is their 'phone and many of them will be locked into a 2 year contract. So they will want the 'phone supported by HTC & Facebook for at least 2 years, preferably 4 -- OS upgrades, security/bug fixes, etc.
However I suspect that HTC will not bother. I bought an HTC 'phone, I got one OS upgrade and then they refused to do any more. They had my money so why bother to spend money supporting me ? It would not bring them any more income and might result that I might delay buying a new 'phone. Well: they are right on that last point, but as a result of the derisory way that they have treated me I will not buy another HTC 'phone, so (long term) they loose - plonkers.
i think the problem is that the number of people that actively use facebook is grossly overstated by the additional number of users (probably far more) that have merely joined up at some point and then forgot it
i log into facebook maybe once a month, but i'm sure there are plenty of registered users that use it less or not at all
facebook is an ok platform for sharing photos... that's probably about it. eventually something simpler and less commercialized will take over and i'll move to that after the rest of my friends and family migrate.
Sure just like everyone who uses Windows just can't wait to run out and buy the newest version every time it is release... oh wait..
OIL, Coal, Microsoft Windows, inkjet printers, Fiat Currencies, cable television, pop with glucose/fructose. There are lots of things that people don't like, but merely put up with because they do not have (or perceive to have) a better alternative.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Apple's first foray into cell phones was the ROKR made in conjunction with Motorola. It was just a rebadged Motorola E398 with the Apple iTunes music store accessible directly from the phone via licensed Apple software. It launched in September 2005.
Apple severely cut motorola off at the knees by soon announcing the iPhone and discontinuing support of the ROKR in September 2006, with the iTunes software being set up and configured to work with the as yet undisclosed iPhone hardware. So even Apple had a mis-step with Motorola on its first time out on the cell-phone dance floor. Why shouldn't Facebook make a misstep or two? (Not that I condone facebook's existence, the utility of facebook pages, or even any point to checking up on facebook at all. I just have an opinion about 1st generation hardware attempts! ! !)
It's also like the Zune phone. Just when MS started its advertising blitz with ?uestLove a.k.a. Questlove, the stores started discounting and discontinuing the damn useless phone and music player.
yes, i really like my HTC desire Z, but unfortunately the screen broke about a year ago (dropped it on the road) and now I have to be careful that no splinters fall out. It still works good, though.
:-(
There was a very bad problem a while ago when an update went wrong and whenever I typed the letters g, s and another one, it would switch me from the SMS app to the browser
I let my annoyance build up by trying to use words without those letters in my SMSes, but eventually I surfed for a solution and found out that some guy or lady with a Chinese name on some forum (yes, [citation needed], found it, it was HERE) gave a clear explanation and solution.
However I was shocked that such an *annoying* bug made it past their quality control.
And HTC should track down "Zhu Lee" from that forum and hire him/her!
Facebook isn't where users want it to be. We like Facebook in the browser and as an app, but collectively users don't feel it belongs as their shell. Consumers had the same reaction to Chrome OS: phenomenal as a browser, but we're rejecting it as the OS, hence, Chromebook has floundered. Same thing goes for Windows - consumers like it on their desktops and laptops, but so far looks like we don't really want it on a phone and tablets. Same thing for Linux - we flocked to it for server apps, but overall avoided it on our desktops.
It's not that I feel they made a mistake, though. I think it's very worthwhile to bump software experiences up and down the stack to see if there's a better fit. But when consumers reject the positioning, it also makes sense to go back to what works.
Everybody hates it and everybody uses it? That doesn't make any sense.
Mind = Blown @ how much you must think everyone loves the shitter...
What's CDMA? Is that something like Betamax?
When we look back this will be the moment Facebook “jumped the shark”
I'm a registered user on facebook. I use it for a few applications that demand facebook credentials, but other than that it's locked down as tight as I can get it - no friends, no sharing, etc...
I'm sure there's lots like me. Heck, many of my coworkers have TWO facebook accounts -one for friends/family, one for work. I know it violates the TOS, but they don't care.
I don't read AC A human right
Shocked. Just shocked to hear this.
Funny thing is, I wonder how many people bought it and immediately discarded the Facebook crap on it. For all it's warts, it was a pretty good phone hardwarewise.
Everybody hates it and everybody uses it? That doesn't make any sense.
You're applying "sense" to the world? This one? Good gravy...
Was the phone really so bad they couldn't sell it at 99c????
I mean, apart from FB Home, it's a normal android phone right?
OIL, Coal, Microsoft Windows, inkjet printers, Fiat Currencies...
TEA BAG ALERT!
Apple's first foray into cell phones was the ROKR made in conjunction with Motorola. It was just a rebadged Motorola E398 with the Apple iTunes music store accessible directly from the phone via licensed Apple software. It launched in September 2005.
Apple severely cut motorola off at the knees by soon announcing the iPhone and discontinuing support of the ROKR in September 2006, with the iTunes software being set up and configured to work with the as yet undisclosed iPhone hardware. So even Apple had a mis-step with Motorola on its first time out on the cell-phone dance floor. Why shouldn't Facebook make a misstep or two? (Not that I condone facebook's existence, the utility of facebook pages, or even any point to checking up on facebook at all. I just have an opinion about 1st generation hardware attempts! ! !)
It's also like the Zune phone. Just when MS started its advertising blitz with ?uestLove a.k.a. Questlove, the stores started discounting and discontinuing the damn useless phone and music player.
Your timeline is off - the ROKR was born and died before the iPhone was even announced (which happened in Jan 2007). I think both Moto and Apple knew the ROKR was doomed to failure before it even arrived but kept up for different reasons: Apple was desperate to break into the mobile industry (some say ROKR was Apple's stalking horse), while Moto was feeling the heat from RIMM and PALM feeling their RAZR hit was fading.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Also from HTC that was out a number a years ago with a dedicated button to post what was on screen to facebook.
https://support.htc.com/en-us/HTC_Status_ATT
John
Actually, it appearz that Facebook is one of the most hated companies in America:
http://247wallst.com/2013/01/09/the-10-most-hated-companies-in-america-2/2/
Facebook has had customer satisfaction issues for some time, but recently did a particularly good job of alienating a portion of its nearly one billion members. According to the ACSI, Facebook is one of the most strongly disliked American companies, beaten out only by three public utilities companies. This comes in part from the company’s continuing user privacy concerns. Mark Zuckerberg’s company did not help itself in this regard in 2012, after it announced that it had the right to republish any and all photos in the accounts of its Instagram users.
Shocking.
Everybody hates it and everybody uses it? That doesn't make any sense.
Really? Because everybody hates driving in rush hour traffic, and pretty much everybody has to.
(Yes, I'm being Amerocentric)
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
US phone companies will continue to get away with this misleading nonsense while journalists continue to post articles like this. You couldn't just pay 99c and get the phone, right? You had to sign a contract to spend a certain amount each month for a certain number of months, right? How much a month, for how many months? Stop toeing the company line.
I remember back in the day all my friends had an email account and that was how you could reach them. Now you have to remember how to reach each friend. Some of them are Facebook People, so you have to message there. Some use SMS. For some of them all you have is their @ISP email, which languishes for months when you fail to realize they've moved to gmail... Not only do you have to know their address, you have to know the conduit...
It seems that the kind of people who where supposed to buy the HTC felt that : Ok so I'm spending all my time on FB, but it's rude to rub it in ....
And didn't want to be tagged: Facebookista ...
Moreover I guess there was some kind of subliminal feeling that if the phone had "Facebook Home" on top you might not see the other allerts like
viber, watsapp, SMS, etc....
On the technical side the phone seems to be not bad, maybe it will find a second market as a cheap cyanogen platform ...
What is this facebook thing everybody is talking about?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Everybody hates Facebook - they only use it because everyone else does and they have to use it to keep in touch
I won't say everybody hates Facebook
I do not hate Facebook, but that does not translate to mean I have to use Facebook
I do not
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Get a free phone that's setup to spy on you. Talk about a Faustian deal. Fuck Facebook I say, their service is not nearly as valuable as your privacy.
I think you're wrong. Most people I know under 40 use facebook every day.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Everybody hates it and everybody uses it? That doesn't make any sense.
Mind = Blown @ how much you must think everyone loves the shitter...
Last time I checked, shitting wasn't optional.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Everybody hates it and everybody uses it? That doesn't make any sense.
Really? Because everybody hates driving in rush hour traffic, and pretty much everybody has to.
(Yes, I'm being Amerocentric)
Unless everyone were forced to use facebook for their work, your analogy is profoundly unhelpful, verging on idiotic.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Low sells, does not mean its a bad phone, it means bad marketing.
OIL, Coal, Microsoft Windows, inkjet printers, Fiat Currencies...
TEA BAG ALERT!
Tea bagger or someone who invested his life savings in bitcoin?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Just like the shoes that went whoosh!
HTC must have realized that the sales of that phone could have been better had it not put "Facebook" name on it.
Why is it no one who reviewed this piece (FaceBook Home) didn't blast it as deserved? I installed it on my phone and started laughing in 2 minutes. It doesn't do anything but show random posts as a pretty layer on top of the same old crappy FaceBook app. Zuck deserves some kudos for the start of FB, but beyond that I dont trust him. Had a chance to make the app we all complain about better, but just crapped on it instead. ...after playing games with our security settings...cmon!