Slashdot Mirror
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'
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.
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
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!
Yes, but if you install a new rom you will lose your warranty period. But you don't have to do it, you can just install a new launcher (a new start screen).
Yes. I loved my HTC s620 (AKA: "Excalibur," and "T-Mobile Dash"). Except for some of the limitations of Windows Mobile it was some really solid hardware. And reviews for the Nexus One, also built by HTC, were stellar, the Tytn II was pretty popular, and people seemed to like the T-Mobile G1. For the longest time there, HTC really did rule the roost. It's only relatively recently, if I remember correctly, that Samsung started to totally dominate, right around the time they launched the Galaxy platform.
Rawr
Probably, depending on the hardware, the security of the boot-loader lockdown, if HTC was planning to unlock this one, and if the drivers are available.
Rawr
...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.
I believe it's called the "sell" button in your stock portfolio. Either that or make something bad happen for them.
Rawr
Maybe that's one of the reasons why it flopped?
[......] has anyone ever had a positive experience with an HTC?
Yes. I used an HTC Desire for two years and never had any problems with it at all. It was the best phone i'd had up to that point by far.When it came to replacing it, the Galaxy S3 only won out over the One X because it had a replaceable battery and an SD card.
**T-Mobile** Dash
That's where HTC went wrong. I had 3 HTC phone, and I was happy with all 3. All of them were branded as T-Mobile phones.
I'm sure most HTC phone owners have no idea who HTC is.
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.
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
My HTC Sensation was my first smartphone, so that may bias me a little. I've moved on to a Note 2 now, but I constantly find myself missing features from Sense 3.5, and bewildered by "features" of Touchwiz (MMS messages as slideshows that you can't zoom in on? WTF Samsung, WTF.)
> If my CM ROM bricks the phone I'll be out 99 cents?
I'm assuming 99 cents is just the deposit on a 2 year hire-purchase agreement with mobile service. If you brick your phone you'll still paying for it for the next 2 years and not being able to use the service you are also paying for without forking out the retail price of another phone.
If they really were 99 cents a phone there would be no shortage of people buying them.
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?
This being a GSM AT&T phone might be a big roadblock in you activating it on Sprint's CDMA network
I believe it's called the "sell" button in your stock portfolio. Either that or make something bad happen for them.
I trust Zuckerburg's ego will do that for me.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I used to roll with a Touch Pro 2, and aside from the horrific memory management that came courtesy of WM6.something, it was an alright device.
LOVED the built in stylus and full keyboard.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
Coming from the G1 and Desire Z, new HTC phones lack a lot of features:
-no replacable battery
-no trackpad
-no SD
-no keyboard
all these features are missing on any "modern" phone, the trend is to make all buttons disappear at the cost of screen real-estate. So when it was time to get a new phone I went for the one with the biggest screen and most of the disappearing features, I went for Samsung.
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
I had a t-mobile g1 and now am using a t-mobile g2. They were both fine. Since all these things are Android the difference is relatively minor. I like Samsung in general as a brand and have been buying their stuff for over a decade, but my tilt currently is that they've currently become the expensive brand. Like Sony was back in the day when they were on top.
That said i don't really understand the phone market. Except for hated Apple who has a decent product lifecycle and longish term support all these manufacturers just pump out and endless stream of nearly identical phones and then abandon them after a few months anyway. Hopefully now that we're at 2-4 cores and ~1gb of ram things will stabilize some.
On the FB specifically (and i am a strong detractor of FB and haven't used it in over a year)... i similarly don't understand why they're bailing so soon. Give the thing a chance. It's not like it's HURTING people or something. For example, relatively few people actually buy the Nexus phones and tablets from Google, but they're still around and serve their purpose.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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 ...
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 !
HTC - Horrible Taiwanese Crap
Seriously has anyone ever had a positive experience with an HTC?
Yes. My first Android phone was the HTC Dream. An excellent little phone (albeit with not quite enough ram), and a much nicer keyboard than any other device I've used. These days I've settled on a Samsung Captivate Glide, but the keyboard isn't as nice, the phone's a little too big and the software support from Samsung is abysmal - I'm still on Gingerbread; they did eventually release an ICS firmware after a very long wait, but it is widely regarded as unusably buggy. The xda-developers community have been reasonably successful at porting CyanogenMod to it, but there are still some serious bugs (notably with bluetooth and GPS) which are holding me back from upgrading.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
My first Android phones was a HTC Hero, cracking bit of kit. The wife had a Desire that she loved and converted her to Android too.
Its a shame to see that HTC have lost their way recently, but that doesn't mean that they can't be great again.
Yep, if it wasn't for the ridiculous 512 MB of internal storage (lower than RAM!!) that forced almost anybody who wanted to have a few apps to use the hackish ext2sd, it would still be a nice phone today. I gave it to my sister when I bought the Galaxy Nexus; she's still using it as main phone. Built as a tank.
I beg to agree to disagree. Everyone may have it, even the people who say they don't, but from both a capitalistic and consumer perspective it doesn't help the value of Facebook.
For those who have Facebook who wish to not use it do so out of necessity E.G me. I have a Facebook account which is a complete sock puppet (yes against the Terms of Use please ban me I'm so worried) which I use as a developer to create Facebook integration services for my customers', which is hardly ever. My wife uses Facebook to communicate with friends but holds no loyalty and is waiting for the next big thing to take everyone off Facebook so she doesn't have to see any more painful ads polluting her screen.
Do either of us give value to Facebook? Maybe my wife does because she keys data into it about herself but even then she states that half of what she puts in is crap. She refuses to click on the ads so no value there and as for that 90% of the stuff she keys into Facebook you certainly cannot use that data effectively and sell it with guarantee that the information is in anyway useful and I think this statement goes for MOST Facebook users.
See, Facebook is all about socialising and everyone has a social side, likewise everyone has a personal side. Facebook's BIGGEST downfall is assuming the both are the same. People put information on Facebook that they want the rest of the world (network) to see. They do so because they want to show certain information. When Graph search came out and Facebook was expecting people to key in their dentists for example I was like "never gonna work" and it's because of this very reason.
So what is the value of Facebook.
a) It holds an unregulated metric of data which is purely dependent on the "desire" of the user, this is wholly proven by celebrities or any public figure because they wont have their Mom added to a public Facebook account which has 1,000's of fans a linked into.
b) That metric of data can only be used as a significant speculative indicator for marketers. Where as Google has built quite cleverly an affective metric in the ways to gauge popularity of websites and information. In fact there is an entire industry out there called the SEO / SEM industry based on these metrics.
c) Social Networking as an industry has legs but what we've found is that it's not with FaceBook. FaceBook works great for selling travel, restaurants or places of interest and even events. Not so good for retail or actual products and absolutely useless for B2B sales.
So all that's left is the mobile market and this is like Apple deciding to sell routers and server hardware, not a strong point of theirs. The mobile market is held by the device manufacturers and more particularly the SEO / SEM industry.
The only real way for FB to make any long term money is to abandon social networking and use the money they have which is kinda what they are doing. Graph was a good idea but Google Places has been there for years now and is directly built into your phone. FaceBook Home was a small half backed investment trying to take on the likes of Apple and Samsung and it really buckles chance.
I have an HTC Desire HD since early 2011 and I'm very happy with it (in spite of not having an official upgrade to Android 4... but seriously, who cares, I haven't seen any Android 4-only app I'd like to have at the moment).
The screen is perfect, the phone is responsive, the camera is great, but above all, the default Android configuration and the Sense UI are top notch. I have tried new Sony, Samsung and LG phones and I don't like their UI half as much (Sony's is quite good, Samsung's especially crappy). HTC gets a lot of little things right that I now take for granted - for example, when I take a train, the weather widget will automatically update and show the weather for the new city if configured to do so. In the Samsung UI, I have to go to the weather app and tell it explicitly to get my new location from the GPS, which is a pain if you are constantly moving.
When I get a new phone, it's going to be HTC.
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
HTC - Horrible Taiwanese Crap
Seriously has anyone ever had a positive experience with an HTC?
captcha: cellular
My HTC One makes the Samsung Galaxy look like a kid's plastic toy in terms of construction quality. I've no idea why people rate Samsung so highly, their phones look as though they'd disintegrate if you put them down on a table too hard.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
HTC Blue Angel and HTC Wizard were both great devices.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
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
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!
I was considering buying one (it compares to the nexus 4 favorably in specs) since I don't want a huge phone and samsung is taking their time with the S4 Mini (ditto for the HTC M4). Turning off home leaves you with what is actually quite a nice device--well designed and good build quality--that easily fits in my pants pocket.
Of course I think the facebook home thing scared everybody away--even the facebook addicts I see on the train don't want to admit it by buying the facebook phone. This phone is way better than any other midrange devices and was a steal at $99 on contract (and should have gone like hotcakes when they dropped it to 99 cents)...so the only explanation I can come up with is that people actively disliked the idea of facebook home and purchased lower-quality midrange phones that didn't include it. Unfortunately this means that I can't buy one...with so few units sold, there won't be any updates coming from HTC and there won't be a modding community to release updated unofficial roms.
Bottles.