On April 4, 2013, Facebook announced Facebook Home, a new platform on Android that is integrated with the current Android system. "Home" contains several features: Chatheads, Cover Feed, and many more. It will be available on April 12th of this year for HTC One, HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S III/S IV and Samsung Galaxy Note II.
With Facebook Home, the Android home screen is replaced with a Facebook-esque background. It’s a great way for avid Facebook users to be more hands-on with their social networking. Facebook photos, statuses, timeline notifications, and more are all featured right on the home screen with this innovative app.
Chatheads are one of the great features of Facebook Home. It is essentially a new way of messaging: one can easily and effectively switch back and forth between Facebook messages and SMS messages. Zuckerberg believes that “…Chatheads are this great, personal way to do messaging.”
Cover Feed gives you the ability to slide around different updates from apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Foursquare. It is meant to give your phone a more personalized feel.
The main purpose of Facebook Home is to give the feel that our phones are designed around people rather than the apps that make it up.
The HTC First will be the first phone that comes with a pre-installed Facebook Home, and it will cost about $100 exclusively through AT&T. It is available for pre-order now, and will be available on April 12th.
Facebook Home is also expected to be released for tablets later this year, making it a widely available app for everyone.
Many people see this new innovation to be Facebook’s entrance into the competitive business of mobile devices. It is speculated that while they will gain a loyal clientele, it will take some time to build up as people are already so accustomed to companies that have been around for years, such as Apple, Blackberry, and Microsoft.
Zuckerberg concluded the event with a considerable line: “Only about a third of the world is on the Internet” but in five to ten years, an overwhelming percentage of feature phone users will be on smartphones. This could mean big things for Facebook Home.
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