Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg had announced about “Facebook Home”, a family of Facebook Apps. for Android Devices.
“You’re going to be able to turn your Android phone into a great social device,” Zuckerberg said at the unveiling. “Our phones today are designed around apps, not people. We want to flip that around.”
Facebook Home will put updates from Facebook right on the home screen via a feature called Cover Feed.
As soon as you turn on your phone or press the home button, you see a stream of posts from News Feed.
Cover feed puts the spotlight on whatever friends are sharing now—photos, status updates, links and more.
Home also features a new notifications system that lets you scrub through multiple alerts at once.
When a friend messages you, Home brings up the Facebook Chat Heads feature. It pops up a person’s face and you can tap on their face and bring up a conversation without losing any context of what you’re doing in the app behind. Chat Heads means you don’t have to decide whether to read a message or keep using your current app. It lets communication flow across the phone experience. It’s designed to let you tap in between multiple message threads.
HTC also unveiled a phone withe Facebook Home pre-loaded, the HTC First. AT&T is also a launch partner for Home, and will carry the HTC First. It’ll be available April 12 for $99.99, with a two-year contract.
“At a deeper level, I think this can start to be a change in how we use computing devices,” said Zuckerberg. “For more than 30 years, computers were mostly about tasks … The modern computing device has a very different place in our lives — it’s also for making us more social, connected and aware. By putting people first and then apps, is one of many small but meaningful changes in our relationship with technology over time.”
The software will be available via Google’s Play Store as a download and will work only with phones running Android 4.0 or higher – this accounts for about 50% of all Android phones. Home will be available on 12 April in the US and soon after in other territories.
No information was given about whether home would be redeveloped to work with Apple or Microsoft phones.
Facebook has created the Facebook Home Program to allow a handset makers to optimize the Home experience. Partners include AT&T, Orange, Qualcomm, HTC, Samsung, Huawei, Sony, EE, ZTE, Lenovo, and Alcatel.
Facebook says it’ll update Home on a monthly basis.
