Facebook recently announced their latest app, Facebook Home, which replaces the standard Android home screen with full-screen photos, notifications and status updates.
Facebook Home is said to launch on April 12th in the US. Further reports say that the new app would not work on lower versions of Android other than Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich. Development of the said app is being worked on by the developers to make it available for tablets in the next few months, but until then, Facebook said that they will be constantly releasing updates to make the app better by adding new features. The app will be available for download in the Play Store once it’s released, and users are given the option to try the app once or use the app “always” as home screen. The app is focused on the cover feed, which streams full-screen photos and stories from the user’s account; it also features a new notifications system that lets users view all notifications at once through their home screen.
The app is as interactive as it is meant to be, making Facebook chat available on home screen by means of the Chat Heads feature, wherein a person’s profile picture pops up on the user’s screen once they sent the user a message on Facebook. What’s better for people on the go is that they will not be forced to reply in an instant if they don’t want to because they’d be given an option whether to read the entire message immediately or not, avoiding the dreadful “seen at [insert time here]” feature. In addition it allows the user to also scan through the threads of messages as they can on the browser version of Facebook inbox.
In explanation, Zuckerberg said during the opening that:
“Today we’re going to finally talk about that Facebook Phone, More accurately, we’re gonna talk about how you can turn your phone into a Facebook Phone. We asked ourselves — if we’re already spending this much time on our phones, how can we make it easier? What if they were designed around people first, and you could also just happen to interact with apps?”
Facebook extended its partnership with mobile makers and carriers such as AT&T, Orange, Qualcomm, HTC, Samsung, Huawei, Sony, EE, ZTE, Lenovo, and Alcatel, to further optimize the Facebook Home app.
Among these carriers and mobile makers, HTC and AT&T is said to release the very first smart phone which features Facebook Home. The new handset is said to be called the HTC First and will be available in the market on April 12th for only $99.99, what's better is that AT&T is now accepting pre-orders of the new phone in their website.
With the release of the new app, Facebook users will eventually cut down their time checking their Facebook account on their computers while still being strongly connected with their friends through their android phones.
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