Mark Zuckerberg wants to turn your Android phone into a simple
sharing device. And by that, he means he wants to turn it into a
Facebook phone.
Facebook just announced Facebook Home, which all but turns any
Android handset into a “Facebook phone” by putting the social giant
right there on the home screen and all of its products at the forefront
of the UI. It isn’t a phone made by Facebook. It’s something better than
that, and in some ways, more important: a deeply integrated application
with its hooks set tightly into the Android platform. Think of it as an
apperating system.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hinting at following this path for
years, even as he fought back incessant Facebook phone rumors. A phone
is “so clearly the wrong strategy for us,” he said last year. And he’s
right. Facebook can’t take on Apple and Samsung, or even Microsoft and
BlackBerry. Making hardware is a lot of work, and that kind of work
doesn’t make sense for Facebook right now. Instead, the social network
is ensuring it can be as front-and-center as possible on all the most
popular platforms today.
“Today we’re finally going to talk about that Facebook phone. Or more
accurately we’re going to talk about how you can turn your Android
phone into a great social, simple device,” Zuckerberg said at the launch
event in Menlo Park. He went on to describe how people most often use
Facebook on their mobile devices and explain why Facebook chose to build
an Android experience, rather than a phone. “A great phone might sell
10 or 20 million units at best. Our community as more than 1 billion
people in it. Even if we did a good job selling a phone, we would only
be serving 1 to 2 percent of our community and we want to do more than
that.”
Of course, Facebook couldn’t just come out with what is, essentially,
an Android homescreen. It needed something to reskin, so it worked with
HTC to release the first phone with Facebook Home, the aptly named HTC
First. It’s a mid-level handset with decent enough specs and a bland
hardware design. Yep, another rectangle with rounded edges and home
button. (Surprise! It looks a whole lot like an iPhone.) But that’s
almost beside the point. You’ll see Facebook Home on a whole lot of
phones — and soon — because it’s designed to work on any Android
handset.
That isn’t quite what people expected, which explains all of the
“Facebook phone” rumors and headlines. But it makes perfect sense:
Facebook Home’s software has so much more reach than any hardware ever
could. Remember the HTC Chacha and HTC Status with dedicated Facebook
buttons and signature Facebook blue coloring? No? That’s OK. Neither
sold well. Facebook Home, on the other hand, doesn’t have to sell
at all, because it can run on almost any Android phone. (As with any
installable, there are hardware requirements, and there are a lot of old
Android phones out in the world.) Home offers a deeply integrated
mobile Facebook experience without having to give up the Android system
you already know and love. Facebook already is the top free app on
Google’s mobile OS, so demand for Facebook on a smartphone is definitely
there — unlike the questionable demand for a phone made by Facebook.
As soon as you launch Facebook Home, you’re taken directly to your
Facebook home screen — a rotating News Feed — where you’ll see the
latest updates from friends and pages you follow. The status updates
show up as full screen images, which you can interact with right from
there. For example, you can double tap to like a photo or status as it’s
on your home screen. Facebook also made some basic alterations to the
Android UI, such as making it easy for you post status updates, take and
share photos to the site and check in to locations wherever you go
directly from the home screen.
The phone isn’t just about your Facebook network, though. An app
drawer gives you quick access to all of the standard Android apps like
Play Store, Chrome and camera, while also putting Facebook goodies like
Instagram and Messages at your fingertips. It’s all elegantly designed
and seamlessly integrated into Android. The built-in Gallery app lets
you share directly to Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Facebook Camera.
A Facebook notification screen, donned with your cover/profile photo,
alerts you to all of the latest happenings in your social network. You
can see who has sent you a message or liked your post or which of your
friends are out at a nearby bar.
Facebook has also created a new messaging system called Chatheads.
Yes, Chatheads. Messaging is built directly into the UI so you don’t
need to hop in and out of different apps to chat with friends. Once a
friend messages you, their profile picture pops up as a small circular
icon. You can tap it and open up the message thread, and leave the
Chathead on the screen so you can easily go back to your chat. You can
have multiple conversations as well, with all the chatheads you like on
your screen. Once you’re done, you can swipe the Chatheads away from the
screen. It works with Facebook messages and SMS, and barely
distinguishes between the two (except by color with blue and green).
Facebook Home controls more of your Android experience than you’re
used to — it’s much more than an app. It can turn off your lock screen
and see what other apps you’re currently running on the phone. It has
control over your system and WiFi settings. The goal is to make it as
easy as possible to do anything you’d want to do with Facebook,
Instagram and the rest of Zuckerberg empire. Gone is the need to hunt
through pages of separate apps. Your whole Facebook experience is all
right there on the home screen, one tap away.
The phone is almost irrelevant, because it won’t be long before you
can install Facebook Home on your own handset. It’s a decidedly
mid-range device straight out of last year, with a 4.3-inch glass
display, a dual-core Snapdragon processor, and running Android 4.1 (a
year-old Android OS.) It’s available on AT&T’s network starting
April 12, for $100. On the same day, you’ll be able to get Facebook Home
on the HTC One and One X, the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4, and
Galaxy Note II
If HTC First sparks enough interest, other handset makers could start
pushing phones with a built-in Facebook Home. Facebook has already set
up the Facebook Home project to help handset makers and carriers build
Android phones with Facebook Home. It allows Facebook to work with
carriers like HTC to optimize for battery life and system notifications.
But for Facebook, it’s less about the the devices and more about making
sure its social network is available as the best experience possible on
the world’s most popular platform.
Facebook already has deep integration into the Windows Phone platform, with the ability to populate the main People and Photos hubs. And the social network’s tools are as integrated as Apple will allow in iOS 6.
The one major platform missing deeper integration was Android, and it
had many more possibilities than the others considering the malleability
of the operating system.
Facebook Home on Android is a huge step for the social networking
company. While Zuckerberg has made it clear the company did not want to
make a phone, Facebook Home provides the clearest look yet at what
Facebook’s mobile future looks like and how the company can turn current
phones into Facebook phones.
