To echo a complaint that is common when designers show off prototypes/imagined-redesigns...what does all this look like when your friends aren't as attractive/good at photography? I'm talking about the Cover Feed function. In the life stage I am now, I'd say that my Facebook Phone would be showing random baby photos 80% of the time, food photos 10% of the time.
I'm also curious how that feature interacts with what I've observed to be normal FB usage. When I want to post a status, I post a status. When I post photos, it's usually as a batch, not many with captions. I think that's how most people do instagrams too.
So, if you have a home screen feed focused on your newsfeed...how will statuses be "attractive" looking? Using the user's default cover image? But those are extremely horizontal. The only newsfeed entities that contribute beautiful photos with substantial text that are in my newsfeed are companies and brands (OK, and George Takei).
Last week would have been pretty annoying -- every single little circle would have contained the exact same red and pink equal sign. The image would have been absolutely useless as any sort of UI indicator. Perhaps this will encourage people to use pictures of themselves for their profile pictures? Might be a chicken/egg situation though.
Don't forget all the "Like if you hate cancer, ignore if you love Hitler" pictures.
Then again, marketing doesn't really work when you show the reality of the product. The Wii probably wouldn't have sold as well if the ads showed people slouched on the couch in their underwear rather than fit, active people with Big White Smiles.
I’ve heard that this was a concern when Graph Search was being developed, and that the query they used in testing to find people with crappy profile pics was “people who like Insane Clown Posse”.
I showed my girlfriend this app. Her first words were "That is dangerous. How much do I just want to post pictures of dicks for everyone with that app"
While not my first thought (I had baby photos etc come up in my mind), to be fair, if this app does gain any traction, inappropriate photobombing people's phones will become a thing - and that's not good for Facebook.
I had the same thought. I'd also have too many grainy, out-of-focus pics of my younger brothers doing shots. And don't forget "meme" pictures. That would be lovely.
I've noticed posting single photos is becoming much more popular - it went from 'posting 50 photos of the party last night' to 'here's a photo of what I'm doing now'. I'd say it's a result of people simultaneously getting phones which work as reasonable cameras, and better data signals which allow instant sharing - you're not sharing lots of photos after the fact (once you copy photos from your camera to your PC), you're sharing a photo as it happens.
This is a significant feature of Instagram also - because every single photo is a new story, you only share one photo at a time - Instagram is built on sharing your best photos, rather than all the photos from an event.
The default view of the feed is actually highly filtered. One of the strongest signals it uses is the posts you like and comment on. So if you don't want to see baby pictures, food, etc. then make sure not to comment on those posts. :) It's pretty easy to go to a party, get a few new facebook friends, and comment on their pages regularly so facebook thinks they are your close circle to show you posts from.
I've always wondered this myself. I'd love to see someone with video editing skills put some of the low res crappy meme and self shots that appear on most facebook feeds.
If they really stood behind the product and wanted you to see it for real, the landing pages would have used your real FB content if you were logged in.
I take issue with the problem statement: "today, phones are built around tasks and apps. To see what's happening with your friends, you pull out your phone and navigate through a series of separate apps."
Firstly, the value to me in owning a smartphone and paying the charges associated with it is ultimately task orientated - from running my business, to getting driving directions, to wanting to play a specific genre of music at the gym. That's actually where the value is in my phone. Maybe I don't fit the demographic, but I don't want those to become second-class citizens over friend communications.
Secondly, it's very hollow to define the problem as 'your friend's activities are spread across multiple apps' when their solution only promotes Facebook activity to the fore.
My FB friend's activity is currently only contained in one app - the FB app. Their solution only removes the checking of multiple apps because those other apps (non-FB social networks, IM networks, etc) are going to be relegated into obscurity and no longer top of mind.
How's that ultimately helpful to my real, technology agnostic, friendships?
"Maybe I don't fit the demographic, but I don't want [task-orientation] to become second-class citizens over friend communications."
You're not their demographic. Phones are still a primarily social technology for most people. The most popular features, voice calls, text messaging, and possibly email, revolve around people.
P.S. I know several people who friend news sources and bloggers and use Fb as an ersatz RSS feed, mitigating the death-by-cat-pictures eventuality.
Well, it wouldn't be very professional for them to just come right out and say, "Say goodbye to the days of checking your Twitter feed separately by no longer using Twitter!"
Yeah, I often see technology: news tickers, desktop widget, live tiles, full-screen apps, etc; that seem to assume that I'll be spending some significant amount of staring at a device waiting for it to ambiently present me information at a snails pace, while I just stand there doing nothing.
Even when I'm using social features of my app, my focus is - "I'll see what my friends are up to while I wait for coffee"; "I'll post something to keep in touch with people". I'm never going to get my phone out of my pocket, turn on the screen, and just stand there hoping that if I wait long enough it might tell me something interesting.
I agree with the basic core of what they're saying- apps are silos, especially on iOS. If they allow third parties to also push content to Facebook Home (and they've been friendly to third parties for a long time) the idea could yet be sound.
I see what appears to be a fine product, which adds a lot of desirable features for communication -- chat heads look especially nice -- but all I can really wonder is what else Facebook might be mining out of my phone usage that the regular Facebook App doesn't do already. Maybe they want to take over SMS messaging on the phone completely and route it through Facebook (centralized chat, it's not even unreasonable), or perhaps automatically upload everything and let you filter expoosed data after the fact (which is too late to trust that it's ever gone). When it comes pre-installed on the phone, they don't even have to ask for permission for everything.
it might just be a hook to induce more people to install a facebook app and/or use facebook. i don't use the facebook app myself (as you say, i don't want facebook having access to my phone), but if i did i would see no real privacy reason not to use this one too.
Agreed, but it's also an interesting product. I'm around a lot of high school aged people, and they are incredibly social. They don't really use a lot of apps, just ones that help them do social things. Building a frontend around the social experience is a clear win for at least this age group. I could see it being a bad experience for me, but younger people will flock to this. They don't care about Android vs. iOS, but they will care about a direct improvement in how social is treated. I think this is a big win for FB.
But yes, very well designed product page, with good use of media. I don't waste time with video, but I was able to catch the experience anyway. That's rare in this age of "spend 5 minutes just sitting on this page".
Ok so now they can log every interaction you do on your phone. Look out for new permissions that you need to change the defaults to, or else your friends will see updates such as "Mongol just dialed his friend John". "Mongol is playing Wordfeud". "Mongol has an appointment with his dentist".
Thanks for all the great feedback. It's awesome to see how much everyone likes the site.
I was the designer and Nick Kwiatek (http://nkwiatek.com) built it. Elisabeth Carr wrote the content, Peter Jordan and Nate Salciccioli made the videos. It was definitely a team effort and feels great to be able to share it with everyone.
I think were all missing the point here, there's now a "facebook phone". For a certain demographic facebook is the most important thing on their phone. It doesn't really matter if home is a huge inovation or not, it only needs to be slightly better then iOS and Android for using facebook and this demo will adopt it.
Facebook is opening up a new market for themselves and with a phone for $99 its very easy for someone to say "mommy I want the facebook phone" and get it.
Soon "facebook phone" will start appearing alongside "iphone", "droid", and "windows phone" as common vernacular. By partnering with att & htc and building on top of android they have now gained access into the cell phone industry with no investment in hardware, cell towers or in creating a new OS, just redesigning a home screen.
Theres a huge potential upside with very little risk involved. Its a good move on facebooks part.
"By partnering with att & htc and building on top of android they have now gained access into the cell phone industry with no investment in hardware, cell towers or in creating a new OS, just redesigning a home screen."
There's always a flip-side to this argument though, and that is that by not heavily investing, there really are pretty low barriers to entry for other tech companies with means.
What prevents Twitter or Google from releasing the exact same thing and then splitting this market proportionally to the market for social networks/new sites in general? I rarely use Facebook so this release has little utility for me. I fully understand I'm not representative of everyone and that there are many teenage girls who will fall over themselves to install it when it comes out.
But if Twitter or even Yahoo released a similar product, I have to believe I would be a lot more likely to install it. This to me just seems like a spruced-up notification system for Facebook. I don't really think it adds a whole lot to their bottom line or site usage.
I think what Facebook are going for here makes a lot of sense.
The home screen at the moment is a fork in the road with the choice of dozens of different app paths to take. What they're planning on doing is removing the extra step needed to start interacting with the content.
It's similar to how they changed the original facebook app. Instead of starting by presenting all the options of which part of facebook you wanted to go to (profile/photos/newsfeed/messages etc.) it instead went straight into the news feed.
This presumably could work just as well with the whole phone. Although my concern is that facebook is only a small subset of my sources of interesting information on mobile. It seems highly limiting for it to only show facebook app content. Maybe there's a possible opportunity for a competing, open 'home screen' app to bring it all in.
This takes what Windows Phone did with People hub and applies it to the whole phone instead of restricting it to an area of the phone. Of course people hub brought over people from twitter, linkedin, etc. as well so is much more comprehensive than this.
I think the biggest thing for me is that my smartphone has always been a "private" thing for me, a place where I can choose to interact with people, or spend hours playing Angry Birds.
With this phone, I'm forced into an environment where I feel like I need to be social all the time, and I feel that might wear on a lot of people.
I don't install non-work IM programs on my desktops anymore because I found that an 'online' status typically denoted to people that I'm available to talk. It got to a point where my wife was even pinging me too often. Then I just put it on unavailable/offline all the time and then what's the point of having it in the first place?
I think the younger generation doesn't have an expectation of non-invasiveness yet. They just aren't doing anything important enough to be bothered when interrupted. I think that changes when you get a little older.
I think this is going to suck. And I think that because Facebook apparently doesn't have any engineers who do "plumbing" - uninteresting work that's necessary.
The core Facebook app still has a software menu button pop up, because they're not targeting a remotely recent build of Android. There is not a single jellybean-style rich notification anywhere to be found. The MediaUploadService doesn't stop itself if media upload is turned off, and it shouldn't even be on because android 4.x broadcasts an intent when a picture is taken anyway.
As we saw in a post about a month ago, monkey patching dalvik is sexy and interesting to work on - the fact that their codebase is so convoluted that they have to is a symptom of sloppy engineering.
Facebook is so obsessed about telling me what my friends do, when i meet them, whats there to talk about? I think we are getting to a point where the digital social networks are ruining the actual social networks; the actual social network is just diluted.
Just my opinion.
Just looked at all the videos. I wanted to like this but I'm really unimpressed. I don't understand why anyone would install this.
All my friends seem to be using Facebook less and less and this seems to be another way to lock me into Facebook's ecosystem. While they could easily allow you to contact your friends in all the ways which you normally communicate with them - SMS, Email, Phone, the only thing they integrated in was Facebook messages.
By making this, they are basically saying that people want something in their hand which provides them random information they can swipe to. People want this random info soo sooo much, they we've made it the home screen + doing anything in apps is the exception.
In its present form, where I risk my SoHo friends' strip poker party greeting the workplace every time I whip out my phone, Home targets Facebook'a beachhead of college students.
Adding geographic and temporal modality, e.g. enabling Home if I am not at the office and it is not between 9AM and 6PM on a weekday, would broaden its appeal.
The greatest benefit of a facebook phone to me has nothing to do with photos, status updates, etc (although I am likely in the minority). Facebook, to me, has become an address book of all of my friends, with contact information that updates itself when it changes.
If facebook replaced my address book with my facebook friends list, and texting and calling to them "just worked", hopefully using facebook-to-facebook over Wifi when available, it would be a great phone.
I've heard others say something similar in regards to their contacts. What do you do when you are not friends with someone? Just curious as I don't use Facebook often.
On topic - I personally wouldn't use this. Facebook belongs as an app. More integration is (almost) always nice, but I really don't need a phone dedicated to the social network - I'd prefer to move farther away from it.
That isn't an advertisement. People legitimately want content from Pages to show up in their news feed. If it was an advertisement, it would say "Sponsored".
But yes, ads are not out of the question in the future.
This.
Facebook has a problem on mobile devices. A great number of users use them but the real estate for advertising is greatly diminished. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next iteration, ads of some kind will pop up. In fact its probably the entire reason for this project.
What new privacy holes will this introduce? I wonder if the facebook home will be constantly monitoring your location, recording app usage, grabbing your text messages, etc. Basically, are you surrendering the rest of your phone data to facebook?
They use their existing technology platform to launch a new brand. Or else they just keep buying small new social networks as they gain popularity, like Instagram.
Why don't they fix Facebook on android before releasing a new product? It frequently "shooooops" for me - crashes, lags, hogs resources, and otherwise does unexpected things.
I'm very wary to install any software from Facebook on Android.
Anyone notice how the main video on that page is almost exclusively women using the app? Guess that's linking in to the idea others have quoted here about the attractiveness factor of the photos in question.
Given that Facebook listed "Mobile" as a major risk to their future [1], this seems like a proportionate response. It seems like every tech giant wants the be at the top of the heap, to control software that is as close to the user as possible. In this case Google Glass looks pretty smart, you can't get any closer than a quarter inch away from my eyeball.
The source reveals that the video mast is actually an animated gif (or cinemagraph, as these tasteful creations are also known as). The stutter in the beginning kind of gives it away, but still quite impressive they included such a long edit and got it to load relatively fast (coming from reddit where uncompressed gifs run amok).
I have my doubts about the launcher and would much rather have Twitter take on the endeavor given I derive much more utility from its network (highlighting stories on my Twitter feed seem a lot more relevant in practice when it comes to things I care about having on my phone's lock screen), but Facebook did one hell of a job with this product landing page. Props to their design team. (Ah! The video header! It's so pretty! And not a single man in sight!)
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at but it's weird to me too. You never know what lead to that decision (target markets, promotional video production issues, or maybe they just wanted to play off the "girl at home on the phone with friends" archetype) but it is odd.
I like Android intents and all, but I think Facebook is misguided if their plan is to release a new version of Home every month. The intent preference is only remembered for the same version of the app... that means if they choose to update the version the user will be asked if they want to launch the intent with Facebook Home again ("Just Once" / "Always").
Facebook already knew this, that's one of the reasons why AT&T and HTC are included in this project, for HTC first device they will install it as system app which will avoid this problem.
Collaborating with HTC and AT&T allows them to install 'Home' as system app in future devices, this will allow their app to add 'layers' on top of any app. This can only be done if device is rooted or app is installed as system app.
You've got this problem (wether this behavior is an actual problem or a benefit to the user is open for debate) no matter what if you rely on being a default Intent in any way. What do you expect them to do, never update again?
-It does look great. But I'm also curious as to what will happen if my friends are not good photographers. How about when they post pictures of what they have eaten?
-I most likely take my phone out of my pocket more than a hundred times each day, they got that part right. Sometimes I just use the phone screen to check the date and time. Sometimes to check if someone has called me or texted me/mailed me. If I'm the only one who checks his phone's screen in order to learn the time, then this is probably a moot point. If not, it's going to be annoying.
-It's all good and dandy to be connected to my friends all the time but I use my phone for what it was meant for, phoning other people. It's very rare that I take my phone out of my pocket to check up on friends through social media. If I want to check up on people, I call them. If I want to do it over facebook or similar, I use the apps.
-Ads. It's most likely get ugly and annoying, fast.
"How about when they post pictures of what they have eaten? [...] It's very rare that I take my phone out of my pocket to check up on friends through social media."
If your friends are posting pictures of what used to be something that they've eaten, it's not surprising that you rarely want to check up on that stuff.
A variant of this idea was implemented by Motorola on some of their phones (which I used for a few weeks before returning it). I forget what it was called ...motoblur? The concept was pretty neat but it drained battery like nothing else. I wonder what the battery implications of Home are.
Facebook, like Google, has the goal of getting users to use their service more - as they are an advertising platform. Google Glass means people will search more - when they're away from the computer. Google investing in better internet means people will have quicker connections, which means they'll again means they'll be searching more.
Here, by increasing the likelihood people are engaged/interested in Facebook status events, Facebook will drive users back to their core platform, whether it's their core app or the desktop version - where they will, indeed, get more impressions for their advertisers. I doubt they are dumb enough, though, to actually do this through the home screen of our phones.
I'd like to point out that this is the first Android phone which didn't emphasize the logos and manufacture. Most Androids have a horrible cluttered physical design, partly because manufactures slap their logo right on the front.
Regardless about how you feel about the actual functionality here, as an entrepreneur you have to be impressed with Facebook's ability to continually ratchet up engagement year after year after year.
This falls into what I'd categorize as "solving the easy problems". It's something that companies do all the time. And sometimes it's worthwhile, but often it means that a company doesn't understand the business it's in very well and doesn't have a clue how to innovate.
Personally I believe that there is a huge amount of room for improvement and innovation in social, and when I see a company like facebook merely working on the "make it prettier and easier" aspect I can't help but wonder how long until a disruptor wrecks their world.
I think Facebook home won't be disruptive. There is so much more that goes into marketing and selling consumer products.
Home is a good win-win deal for facebook and HTC. Facebook can collect valuable social data from mobile devices and optimize ad delivery for users of that phone. HTC has the ability to use Home as a way to differentiate its phone in a very crowded market where the average consumer sees little differentiation between different smart phones outside of the iphone.
It turns your Android phone into Facebook. I'm amused by the App Launcher description: "Get right to Facebook, Instagram and other essentials". Because the only reason I use technology for social media things...
But to be fair there might be a certain demographic for which this makes sense. And in many ways it's a lot like what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Phone (but I don't know how successful that is).
The product seems pretty cool even though I'd never use it.
The site says $99, however, upon clicking preorder, we see it costs $450 without a contract. AT&T of course says, "*Requires 2-yr contract with qualifying voice and data plans. Activation fee applies." So this cool little idea just got a whole lot more expensive.
I say wait for the rom to leak, and then dual boot it on a new Nexus 4.
UPDATE: Sorry, I misread, this is just an overlay. Still though, the point still stands.
I wouldn't give >1% of my battery power to an app like this, especially coming from Facebook. Back when I used the Facebook app and Facebook it drained too much of the battery.
Now if feedly launches something like this, where the photos and content come from RSS feeds, you can sign me up for beta testing. You could take over and kill Chameleon, Apex, Go, and Trebuchet easily.
I think it really is bad news for Apple... if more such stuff starts coming exclusively on Android, then it is bad for Apple. And very good for Google. (posting this to get some insight, not to initiate ugly debate among Apple/Google fan-boys)
I'm not so sure about that. Hijacking Android like Facebook does it, might mean trouble for Google. Google's revenue comes from advertisement in their products. If you use an app to rebrand the smart phone, so people won't use Google services anymore (and won't see ads), that's very troublesome for Google.
Google is not earning money with Android. Facebook is kind of backstabbing Google, in my opinion.
Looking at the App, I don't get why I should install it or what the advantage is over using the normal Facebook App ... then again I don't use Facebook that much.
What a landing page. Almost makes me want to start using Facebook again. Now, this is the step before Facebook forks android, and builds their own apps store. And then they build their own signature phone, then a tablet, and so on...
With the difference that Facebook's efforts help Android compete against iOS (at least for the moment) while Chrome is agnostic between Windows and OS X.
Is anyone here aware of a "chat heads" like chat UI for desktop computing? Seems like there is nothing about the idea that makes it only a good design on mobile platforms.
Lot of False Likes will happen - due to low quality phones..double tap means a like.. it will be the biggest concern for mobile users with facebook home installed
I imagine Facebook has already considered this problem and it is not a big concern (and likes are their ad business, so they want lots of likes, but real likes to better target ads)...
First, I'd imagine a second double tap will instantly unlike something or something similar to that nature. Secondly, users will just get used to the feature and work with it.
danso|13 years ago
I'm also curious how that feature interacts with what I've observed to be normal FB usage. When I want to post a status, I post a status. When I post photos, it's usually as a batch, not many with captions. I think that's how most people do instagrams too.
So, if you have a home screen feed focused on your newsfeed...how will statuses be "attractive" looking? Using the user's default cover image? But those are extremely horizontal. The only newsfeed entities that contribute beautiful photos with substantial text that are in my newsfeed are companies and brands (OK, and George Takei).
tolmasky|13 years ago
Sodaware|13 years ago
Then again, marketing doesn't really work when you show the reality of the product. The Wii probably wouldn't have sold as well if the ads showed people slouched on the couch in their underwear rather than fit, active people with Big White Smiles.
rlanday|13 years ago
ritchiea|13 years ago
JumpCrisscross|13 years ago
froo|13 years ago
While not my first thought (I had baby photos etc come up in my mind), to be fair, if this app does gain any traction, inappropriate photobombing people's phones will become a thing - and that's not good for Facebook.
dnlbyl|13 years ago
uptown|13 years ago
That's why Instagram was so important. We'll just slather on filters till things either look better or imperceptible as human.
freshfunk|13 years ago
I'm guessing there's more to your feed than babies and food and that othe content is ranked higher due to your aversion of then.
mbrock|13 years ago
batiudrami|13 years ago
This is a significant feature of Instagram also - because every single photo is a new story, you only share one photo at a time - Instagram is built on sharing your best photos, rather than all the photos from an event.
zwieback|13 years ago
lnanek2|13 years ago
zmonkeyz|13 years ago
tagliala|13 years ago
and 10% cats :)
robszumski|13 years ago
sodomizer|13 years ago
dotBen|13 years ago
Firstly, the value to me in owning a smartphone and paying the charges associated with it is ultimately task orientated - from running my business, to getting driving directions, to wanting to play a specific genre of music at the gym. That's actually where the value is in my phone. Maybe I don't fit the demographic, but I don't want those to become second-class citizens over friend communications.
Secondly, it's very hollow to define the problem as 'your friend's activities are spread across multiple apps' when their solution only promotes Facebook activity to the fore.
My FB friend's activity is currently only contained in one app - the FB app. Their solution only removes the checking of multiple apps because those other apps (non-FB social networks, IM networks, etc) are going to be relegated into obscurity and no longer top of mind.
How's that ultimately helpful to my real, technology agnostic, friendships?
JumpCrisscross|13 years ago
You're not their demographic. Phones are still a primarily social technology for most people. The most popular features, voice calls, text messaging, and possibly email, revolve around people.
P.S. I know several people who friend news sources and bloggers and use Fb as an ersatz RSS feed, mitigating the death-by-cat-pictures eventuality.
rhizome|13 years ago
djpowell|13 years ago
Even when I'm using social features of my app, my focus is - "I'll see what my friends are up to while I wait for coffee"; "I'll post something to keep in touch with people". I'm never going to get my phone out of my pocket, turn on the screen, and just stand there hoping that if I wait long enough it might tell me something interesting.
untog|13 years ago
lost_name|13 years ago
I see what appears to be a fine product, which adds a lot of desirable features for communication -- chat heads look especially nice -- but all I can really wonder is what else Facebook might be mining out of my phone usage that the regular Facebook App doesn't do already. Maybe they want to take over SMS messaging on the phone completely and route it through Facebook (centralized chat, it's not even unreasonable), or perhaps automatically upload everything and let you filter expoosed data after the fact (which is too late to trust that it's ever gone). When it comes pre-installed on the phone, they don't even have to ask for permission for everything.
freshfunk|13 years ago
illuminate|13 years ago
zem|13 years ago
bretthopper|13 years ago
drharris|13 years ago
But yes, very well designed product page, with good use of media. I don't waste time with video, but I was able to catch the experience anyway. That's rare in this age of "spend 5 minutes just sitting on this page".
jakobe|13 years ago
grecy|13 years ago
gsarrica|13 years ago
fudged71|13 years ago
gpmcadam|13 years ago
unknown|13 years ago
[deleted]
menny|13 years ago
mongol|13 years ago
skylervm|13 years ago
I was the designer and Nick Kwiatek (http://nkwiatek.com) built it. Elisabeth Carr wrote the content, Peter Jordan and Nate Salciccioli made the videos. It was definitely a team effort and feels great to be able to share it with everyone.
Sodaware|13 years ago
largesse|13 years ago
wavesounds|13 years ago
Facebook is opening up a new market for themselves and with a phone for $99 its very easy for someone to say "mommy I want the facebook phone" and get it.
Soon "facebook phone" will start appearing alongside "iphone", "droid", and "windows phone" as common vernacular. By partnering with att & htc and building on top of android they have now gained access into the cell phone industry with no investment in hardware, cell towers or in creating a new OS, just redesigning a home screen.
Theres a huge potential upside with very little risk involved. Its a good move on facebooks part.
dkrich|13 years ago
There's always a flip-side to this argument though, and that is that by not heavily investing, there really are pretty low barriers to entry for other tech companies with means.
What prevents Twitter or Google from releasing the exact same thing and then splitting this market proportionally to the market for social networks/new sites in general? I rarely use Facebook so this release has little utility for me. I fully understand I'm not representative of everyone and that there are many teenage girls who will fall over themselves to install it when it comes out.
But if Twitter or even Yahoo released a similar product, I have to believe I would be a lot more likely to install it. This to me just seems like a spruced-up notification system for Facebook. I don't really think it adds a whole lot to their bottom line or site usage.
jordn|13 years ago
The home screen at the moment is a fork in the road with the choice of dozens of different app paths to take. What they're planning on doing is removing the extra step needed to start interacting with the content.
It's similar to how they changed the original facebook app. Instead of starting by presenting all the options of which part of facebook you wanted to go to (profile/photos/newsfeed/messages etc.) it instead went straight into the news feed.
This presumably could work just as well with the whole phone. Although my concern is that facebook is only a small subset of my sources of interesting information on mobile. It seems highly limiting for it to only show facebook app content. Maybe there's a possible opportunity for a competing, open 'home screen' app to bring it all in.
barista|13 years ago
eggbrain|13 years ago
With this phone, I'm forced into an environment where I feel like I need to be social all the time, and I feel that might wear on a lot of people.
Zimahl|13 years ago
I think the younger generation doesn't have an expectation of non-invasiveness yet. They just aren't doing anything important enough to be bothered when interrupted. I think that changes when you get a little older.
buildnship|13 years ago
I think this was probably a user story for them and definitely one of their biggest motivations, unfortunately lol.
leephillips|13 years ago
Sounds like a self-flagellation device for masochists.
"Upfront notifications and quick access to your essentials mean you’ll never miss a moment."
Except for most of what's important, which you will miss unless you put that phone down.
"And you can keep chatting with friends, even when you’re using other apps."
Please kill me.
On the page design: I'm not as impressed as many of the commenters here. It's nonresponsive and requires horizontal scrolling.
charleslmunger|13 years ago
The core Facebook app still has a software menu button pop up, because they're not targeting a remotely recent build of Android. There is not a single jellybean-style rich notification anywhere to be found. The MediaUploadService doesn't stop itself if media upload is turned off, and it shouldn't even be on because android 4.x broadcasts an intent when a picture is taken anyway.
As we saw in a post about a month ago, monkey patching dalvik is sexy and interesting to work on - the fact that their codebase is so convoluted that they have to is a symptom of sloppy engineering.
Systemic33|13 years ago
Buzaga|13 years ago
"Man I went this place.." "Yeah, I saw it on your Facebook..."
volandovengo|13 years ago
All my friends seem to be using Facebook less and less and this seems to be another way to lock me into Facebook's ecosystem. While they could easily allow you to contact your friends in all the ways which you normally communicate with them - SMS, Email, Phone, the only thing they integrated in was Facebook messages.
By making this, they are basically saying that people want something in their hand which provides them random information they can swipe to. People want this random info soo sooo much, they we've made it the home screen + doing anything in apps is the exception.
ljlolel|13 years ago
JumpCrisscross|13 years ago
Adding geographic and temporal modality, e.g. enabling Home if I am not at the office and it is not between 9AM and 6PM on a weekday, would broaden its appeal.
covercash|13 years ago
Hovertruck|13 years ago
koyote|13 years ago
tg3|13 years ago
If facebook replaced my address book with my facebook friends list, and texting and calling to them "just worked", hopefully using facebook-to-facebook over Wifi when available, it would be a great phone.
hadem|13 years ago
eggnet|13 years ago
Bramble|13 years ago
tjbiddle|13 years ago
On topic - I personally wouldn't use this. Facebook belongs as an app. More integration is (almost) always nice, but I really don't need a phone dedicated to the social network - I'd prefer to move farther away from it.
acc00|13 years ago
OK, this one I think I get. Why have full-screen standby ads only on Kindle?
zdrtx|13 years ago
But yes, ads are not out of the question in the future.
alaskamiller|13 years ago
uptown|13 years ago
doron|13 years ago
mongol|13 years ago
drcube|13 years ago
jonknee|13 years ago
ville|13 years ago
bsimpson|13 years ago
freshfunk|13 years ago
freshfunk|13 years ago
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joosters|13 years ago
illuminate|13 years ago
uptown|13 years ago
notatoad|13 years ago
Buzaga|13 years ago
cadetzero|13 years ago
I'm very wary to install any software from Facebook on Android.
skywalk|13 years ago
notaddicted|13 years ago
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/05/09/facebook-t...
ereckers|13 years ago
The design of the production page is nice though. The video mast is kind of what I've been waiting for for a long time. It's nicely implemented.
jechen|13 years ago
jechen|13 years ago
staircasebug|13 years ago
jfim|13 years ago
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/4/4183688/facebook-will-put-a...
illuminate|13 years ago
Le_SDT|13 years ago
wizard_2|13 years ago
hcarvalhoalves|13 years ago
JSadowski|13 years ago
djanogo|13 years ago
Collaborating with HTC and AT&T allows them to install 'Home' as system app in future devices, this will allow their app to add 'layers' on top of any app. This can only be done if device is rooted or app is installed as system app.
ConstantineXVI|13 years ago
canibanoglu|13 years ago
-It does look great. But I'm also curious as to what will happen if my friends are not good photographers. How about when they post pictures of what they have eaten?
-I most likely take my phone out of my pocket more than a hundred times each day, they got that part right. Sometimes I just use the phone screen to check the date and time. Sometimes to check if someone has called me or texted me/mailed me. If I'm the only one who checks his phone's screen in order to learn the time, then this is probably a moot point. If not, it's going to be annoying.
-It's all good and dandy to be connected to my friends all the time but I use my phone for what it was meant for, phoning other people. It's very rare that I take my phone out of my pocket to check up on friends through social media. If I want to check up on people, I call them. If I want to do it over facebook or similar, I use the apps.
-Ads. It's most likely get ugly and annoying, fast.
leephillips|13 years ago
If your friends are posting pictures of what used to be something that they've eaten, it's not surprising that you rarely want to check up on that stuff.
throwaway1979|13 years ago
illuminate|13 years ago
hoverkraft|13 years ago
r00fus|13 years ago
InfinityX0|13 years ago
Here, by increasing the likelihood people are engaged/interested in Facebook status events, Facebook will drive users back to their core platform, whether it's their core app or the desktop version - where they will, indeed, get more impressions for their advertisers. I doubt they are dumb enough, though, to actually do this through the home screen of our phones.
joshuasortino|13 years ago
footpath|13 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus#Comparison_of_phon...
dasil003|13 years ago
InclinedPlane|13 years ago
Personally I believe that there is a huge amount of room for improvement and innovation in social, and when I see a company like facebook merely working on the "make it prettier and easier" aspect I can't help but wonder how long until a disruptor wrecks their world.
theprodigy|13 years ago
Home is a good win-win deal for facebook and HTC. Facebook can collect valuable social data from mobile devices and optimize ad delivery for users of that phone. HTC has the ability to use Home as a way to differentiate its phone in a very crowded market where the average consumer sees little differentiation between different smart phones outside of the iphone.
daigoba66|13 years ago
But to be fair there might be a certain demographic for which this makes sense. And in many ways it's a lot like what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Phone (but I don't know how successful that is).
The product seems pretty cool even though I'd never use it.
film42|13 years ago
I say wait for the rom to leak, and then dual boot it on a new Nexus 4.
UPDATE: Sorry, I misread, this is just an overlay. Still though, the point still stands.
MojoJolo|13 years ago
twism|13 years ago
jjsz|13 years ago
Now if feedly launches something like this, where the photos and content come from RSS feeds, you can sign me up for beta testing. You could take over and kill Chameleon, Apex, Go, and Trebuchet easily.
ehudla|13 years ago
Cyranix|13 years ago
zwieback|13 years ago
jgross206|13 years ago
beerglass|13 years ago
kgarten|13 years ago
Google is not earning money with Android. Facebook is kind of backstabbing Google, in my opinion.
Looking at the App, I don't get why I should install it or what the advantage is over using the normal Facebook App ... then again I don't use Facebook that much.
We'll see how it will play out.
orangethirty|13 years ago
wildster|13 years ago
fpgeek|13 years ago
state|13 years ago
tonycoco|13 years ago
nQuo|13 years ago
donaldguy|13 years ago
machbio|13 years ago
nickconfer|13 years ago
First, I'd imagine a second double tap will instantly unlike something or something similar to that nature. Secondly, users will just get used to the feature and work with it.
myko|13 years ago
SSilver2k2|13 years ago
glazskunrukitis|13 years ago
songgao|13 years ago
obilgic|13 years ago
http://www.att.com/facebookhome
mamatta|13 years ago
aurelius83|13 years ago
bookwormAT|13 years ago
littlemerman|13 years ago
PavlovsCat|13 years ago
Ugly on the outside, even more ugly on the inside -- what's not to ignore, until you burn it down?
starikovs|13 years ago
fotoblur|13 years ago
fakeer|13 years ago
sunkencity|13 years ago
nokya|13 years ago
tubbo|13 years ago
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Buzaga|13 years ago
yuvadam|13 years ago