Facebook’s new Home on Android: from rumors to reality

Android Central reports that the launcher now runs on Sony’x Xperia ZL, as well. It’s a little weird that Facebook decided to roll this out so quietly, but if you own any of the phones above, you’re free to give Home a spin.

People are interested in Facebook Home. In the nine days since the app launched on Google Play, it’s amassed over 500,000 downloads, reports TechCrunch, despite only running on a handful of devices. Home, Facebook’s new OS-wide experience for Android, was first announced at the beginning of the month alongside the HTC First, but didn’t make it to Play until the 12th of April. And while Facebook has grand designs for expanded compatibility in the future, so far it’s only available on the aforementioned First, HTC’s One and One X, and Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Note II.

It’s tough to compare the app’s popularity to the rest of what’s in the Play store when it runs on such a limited subset of hardware, but it’s fair to say that people are at least curious to check out Facebook’s “people, not apps” approach to the Android interface. In our own use, we found a lot to like, particularly the convenience and immediacy of the Chat Heads, but were put off by the lack of folders and widget support. Despite the app’s apparent popularity, Google’s Eric Schmidt seems unconcerned that Home could chip away at Google’s control over the Android platform, calling it a “tremendous endorsement” of Google’s Play store.

On a Wednesday almost one year ago, Facebook product designers Joey Flynn and Brandon Walkin decided to work from home. They discussed how frustrating it is that modern smartphones aren’t designed with texting in mind, since that’s what we’re doing most of the time. It’s impossible to multitask while texting with friends — who are, more often than not, faceless entities organized by row inside a texting app.

“We had always talked about how apps with messaging components inside them are always the best,” Flynn says. “We thought that it would be awesome if every app could have a messaging component.” Or, what if your friends could somehow be one tap away as you found directions, looked up a restaurant, or responded to an email? Nearly two days later, “Chat Heads” started coming into focus — icons of your friends that stay with you no matter what app you’re using. Tapping a friend pops your conversation with them into the foreground. With a flick, the conversation zips into the background.

Facebook has released a new commercial with an unusual star — CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The company’s “Launch Day” ad, published to the web yesterday, sees Zuckerberg deliver an address to his employees prior to the release of Facebook Home, Facebook’s new Android-integrated mobile operating system.

“Guys! This is it,” Zuckerberg exclaims upon entering the scene at Facebook’s headquarters, before telling his team that Facebook Home is ready to ship. The focus then shifts to Joey, an employee playing around on his HTC First handset while his boss speaks. As Zuckerberg’s voice fades into the background, Joey flips through status updates and photos, and texts his friends through Home’s Chat Heads feature. Each post sends Joey’s mind on a mini-reverie, and his thoughts are played out in live action in the office. A goat bleats at Zuckerberg’s face, a vacationing friend does a cannonball, and go-karts whiz around.

Starting today, you can have a Facebook phone — and all you need is your current Android phone and about five minutes. Facebook Home, a suite of apps that replaces the homescreen of your Android phone with your Facebook News Feed and overhauls your messaging setup, is now available in the Google Play store. Home lets you keep track of what your friends are up to without ever having to launch an app, and the newly-added unification of Messenger and SMS makes keeping in touch even simpler. It’s a handsome and clever way to interact with friends with your existing Android handset — and you can easily go back to your old homescreen at any time, so why not try it? We’ve laid out everything you need to know in the guide below, and in just a few minutes you’ll be swiping between status updates and Chat Heads with reckless abandon.

(Updated: You’ll need a Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, HTC One, One X, One X+, and now the Galaxy S4 or Sony Xperia ZL in order to use Facebook Home, though any Android phone can currently use Chat Heads.)

The HTC First is going to be best-known as the pilot “Facebook Phone,” shipping with the all-new Facebook Home software running in lieu of a traditional Android phone skin. That would be enough to make it notable, but the First has a couple of other things going for it, things that lots of people have been waiting for in an Android phone. First (and before we go any further, let’s just put it on the table that “First” is a ridiculous name), HTC is finally zigging into a smaller screen size while the rest of the Android ecosystem is zagging into ever larger form factors. Second, beneath that Facebook launcher lurks a pure version of Android that’s virtually unadulterated by manufacturer and carrier software.

A year ago, a phone debuting at $99.99 on-contract was virtually guaranteed to be a clunker. Over that past year we’ve also watch screen sizes increase and any Android phone that didn’t sport a ginormous screen was also likely to be given sub-par components. The phrase “mid-range Android phone” was basically a death-knell.

On April 12th, the much-vaunted Facebook Phone will arrive — but it’s not a phone at all. Facebook Home, as it’s called, is a couple of pieces of software that transform any Android smartphone’s homescreen into a Facebook feed, and put Facebook Messenger chats on top of any app. Instead of making a sucker’s bet that it can take on Apple and Samsung directly, Facebook is doing what Facebook does best: making software.

It’s a clever strategy, but it will only work if the software is actually compelling enough for people to want to install and use it. Facebook needs to convince a wide swath of users who never gave their homescreens a second thought that it has a better way. Even if it can’t, Facebook is hedging its bets with another feature that makes texting much easier. Will either be enough to draw users away from Twitter and into Zuckerberg’s world? Read on for our full review.

MoDaCo has just leaked a pre-release version of Facebook Home. Set for launch on April 12th, Facebook’s new launcher will initially only be compatible with five handsets, but MoDaCo says this pre-release version works on a wide range of devices including Google’s Nexus 4 phone and Nexus 7 tablet.

There are a few caveats: Facebook’s new “Chat Heads” feature isn’t working, and the maximum supported resolution is 1280 x 768. It’s also a little difficult to get up and running in the first place, although it doesn’t require any major trickery aside from enabling “install from unknown sources” in Android’s settings menu. As the beta apps don’t require root, risks to your phone should be minimal, but being pre-release software don’t expect the most stable experience. If you’re interested to try Facebook Home out for yourself, head on over to MoDaCo for full installation instructions. If you’d rather wait until Friday for the official release, you can pass the time by watching our video preview.

Yesterday Facebook announced its newest mobile initiative, Facebook Home — and today the company has posted a lengthy set of answers in an attempt to address any privacy concerns potential users may have. Simply entitled “Answering Your Questions on Home and Privacy,“ the document ranges from whether users will have to continue to use Home once they install it — as shown yesterday, it can be turned off — to what information it collects.

Obviously, the company collects any Facebook-related information like likes or comments, but it also keeps track of what apps you have installed in Home’s launcher. “We store this information in identifiable form for 90 days and use it to provide the service and improve how it works,” the page reads. Home also collects information on which apps send out system notifications to your phone — though not the content of the notification itself. The page also specifies that third-party app notifications only work on phones that have Home pre-installed like the HTC First, so users downloading it to their current phones won’t have reason to be concerned there.

Facebook Home, a lock screen and launcher replacement for Android, looks very good. In fact, maybe it looks too good.

In the social network’s promo trailer for Home, you first witness a woman picking bright orange pumpkins in a field. A white digital clock typeface contrasts beautifully against the blue sky behind her. An image on Facebook’s Home website shows a woman donning a bright blue life vest paddling through crystal clear waters. Another shows a group of friends climbing a glorious green hilltop. These images are meant to represent stories you might find in your News Feed, which becomes your lock screen if you’re using Facebook Home. You can swipe through them while you’re waiting in line, boarding an airplane, or sitting on the couch. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimates we see our lock screen more than 100 times each day.

Answering questions after today’s Facebook Home event, Mark Zuckerberg was full of praise for Google’s smartphone platform. “We think that Google takes their commitment to openness in the ecosystem really seriously,” he said, regarding the possibility Google might try to lock out Facebook. Google, he said, was aware of Facebook’s work, although wasn’t a partner like a host of other industry players. “I actually think this is really good for Android,” he added, setting up a gentle dig. “Most app developers put most of their energy into iPhone.”

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook Home is essentially an end-run around Google’s services wherever they compete directly with Facebook’s, with the ultimate goal of capturing more dollars. Home puts Facebook’s social updates, Facebook’s contacts, Facebook’s messaging service, and crucially, Facebook’s advertising directly on an Android user’s home and lock screens. That’s a much more direct attack on Google’s business.

Less than an hour after Mark Zuckerberg walked off stage, you can stream today’s unveiling of Facebook Home. The 40-minute presentation is already available for on-demand viewing, and it makes for a great overview of the company’s latest and “best” mobile experience. If you want to relive the introduction of Coverfeed, Chat Heads, and other pieces of Home — Facebook’s ambitious bid to take over your Android phone — now’s the time. We’ve embedded the event in its entirety below.

The HTC First is, of course, the “first” phone to launch with Facebook Home built in as its core skin. It is, without a doubt, a mid-range Android device — but it seems sturdy and probably able to bounce around in your bag without taking much damage. It’s running on AT&T’s 4G LTE network and launching on April 12th for $99.99, but is available for pre-order today. The device has a 4.3-inch 720p display, a 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 16GB of storage and 1GB of memory. Underneath the skin of Facebook Home is the beating heart of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The First has a soft-touch rubber design and smooth clean edges, and at 4.3 inches feels almost twee when compared to the current HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4. It’s about the size of an iPhone 5, but with curved glass on the sides and a front-facing camera in its top left corner. The model we looked at was jet black — it will be available in four colors when it goes on sale — and the dark color scheme really makes the screen pop. Facebook had the brightness on the 720p display cranked up so it was hard to get a strong gauge of how the screen will perform in different situations, but from what we saw it was a nice display for a device in this price range. The First is also incredibly light, but not in a negative sense; the textured covering provides a real sense of security while it’s in your hand. That said, the physical materials here don’t quite measure up to the polycarbonate bodies that you might see on a Nokia device. Overall, it looks and feels every inch a $99.99 phone.

Facebook has often been coy about its monetization strategies, but the company has confirmed that ads will be coming to Home for Android, the launcher it debuted today. “There are no ads in this yet, I’m sure that one day there will be,” said Mark Zuckerberg when asked about how Facebook Home would make money. Another member of the team clarified that ads would be coming to Cover Feed, though they won’t be there when the app launches on April 12th.

Zuckerberg responded more directly to a further question: “Yup!” he said when asked again whether people might see ads in cover feed. He described ads as another type of content, along with the friend updates and news Facebook has been trying to put front and center with its recent updates. That’s not out of line with what Facebook currently does, but unlike with a dedicated app, putting ads in Cover Feed means you’d see promotions for apps or businesses directly on your phone’s home screen and lock screen. And unlike Amazon, which partially subsidizes its Kindles with advertising, Facebook won’t be knocking any money off the price of a phone.

Facebook’s new Home launcher for Android will be coming to tablets, the company has just said. After demonstrating a series of social features, including “Chat heads” messaging and a redesigned news feed, Facebook said that Home would hit Android tablets within “several months.” For now, that version is still in development, making Home phone-only when it hits the Play Store on April 12th.

Described as “mobile best,” Home takes advantage of the always-connected nature of phones to offer a constant stream of social interactions. Tablets, though, offer some other advantages, including a larger screen for Facebook and Instagram’s much-touted photo sharing. Facebook has also promised monthly updates to Home, so more features could be in place by the time a tablet-optimized version comes out.

In addition to launching its new launcher and suite of apps for Android, Facebook Home, the social giant has also announced the Facebook Home Program for phone manufacturers. HTC, Samsung, Sony, and others have all signed up for the program, which will help bring Facebook’s new suite of apps to consumers.

Chipmaker Qualcomm is also among Facebook’s list of partners, along with AT&T. America’s second-largest carrier is bringing a new HTC phone to its network with Facebook Home pre-installed. It’s not clear if Sony or Samsung will be releasing similar handsets, or if their participation is limited to ensuring their handsets support the new launcher. Samsung’s Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II, and Galaxy S4 will all support Facebook Home when it launches on April 12th.

HTC and Facebook have just announced the First, a new smartphone that puts Facebook front and center and runs on AT&T’s network. Despite its name, the First isn’t the first device that Facebook and HTC have partnered up on — back in 2011, HTC released the ChaCha, Status, and Salsa, all of which had special Facebook integration. But the First comes with Facebook’s new Home launcher out of the box, offering a much richer Facebook experience than the earlier efforts. AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega says that it offers “the most immersive engagement I’ve ever seen.” Underneath Facebook’s Home launcher is Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Facebook says that the First will have some deeper integration for system notifications than the version of Home available for download on other devices and it will also come pre-loaded with Instagram, being the only phone on the market to do so.

The First will come in four colors: red, light blue, white, and black. It has a very minimal design, and is said to “not be huge” thanks to its 4.3-inch display, 1280 x 720 pixel Super LCD display. Below the display are three capacitive buttons, and the overall shape is a generic rounded rectangle with cameras on the front and back. It is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.4GHz and paired with 1GB of RAM, making it one of the first phones on the market with this chip. It also has 16GB of internal storage and a 2,000mAh battery. Its rear camera is a 5-megapixel unit with an f/2.0, 28mm lens, while the front camera is a 1.6-megapixel sensor. The First supports AT&T’s 4G LTE network and will be available April 12th for $99.99. Interested customers are able to pre-order it starting today. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that the device will also be released on Orange and EE in Europe, though a release date was not provided.

Facebook’s throwing its hat in the Android ring in a big, big way. Today at an event at the company’s campus in California, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Home, a deep software integration with Android that puts Facebook services front and center. Zuckerberg left the HTC First announcement to HTC’s Peter Chou, spending more time mentioning ways you could turn your Android phone into something much more social. We spend as much as 25 percent of our time on our phone using Facebook and Instagram, he said, so why not design a phone around “people, not apps?”

Home is a family of Facebook apps that overhauls your entire device, turning it into a Facebook phone. An app called Coverfeed overhauls the homescreen and the lockscreen, giving you updates on what your friends are doing without you having to launch an app, or even unlock your phone — and you’ll get ads in all the same places. You can comment or like posts from your homescreen — it feels incredibly native. Everything is full-screen and incredibly visual, really looking nothing like Android.

Rumors of a Facebook phone have been circulating since 2010, and tomorrow the company will be revealing its latest plans at its “new home for Android” event. Will the social giant be releasing a new launcher? A forked version of the Android operating system itself? Will a new phone be in the offing — and is that phone the HTC First? Even more importantly, what features does Facebook have in store that will encourage users to take it for a spin in the first place? We’ll be on the ground at Facebook headquarters to bring you all the news live — starting at 10AM PT on Thursday, April 4th.

After a years-long lead up of false starts, half-measures, and rumors, Facebook’s phone plans will finally be revealed tomorrow. The event, in which Facebook promises to show off its “new home on Android,” is likely to involve two major announcements. First, we are expecting new software for Android called “Facebook Home” that will replace your homescreen with Facebook content and features. Second, we are expecting a mid-range phone built by HTC that will showcase the software.

Over the years, Mark Zuckerberg has protested many times that Facebook isn’t interested in building a phone. Believe it or not, you can still take those statements at face value (at least for now). In fact, Zuckerberg has been hinting all along at just the sort of features we’re expecting tomorrow. Here he is speaking in July 2012:

We’re just one day away from the Facebook Home event, and leaks are starting to fly fast and furious. After getting a peak at potential hardware as well as a few software details courtesy a leaked system software dump, 9to5Google has posted an extensive look at what it claims is the new UI for this Facebook-centric device. The images come from @evleaks, who yesterday released the first potential image of the phone, and show off what appear to be an app launcher, a lock screen with custom notifications, and a sharing pane. While the third image doesn’t seem all that different from Android’s current sharing scheme, the first two images are definitely unique.

The app launcher view (seen above) looks similar to a standard Android folder of apps but comes with persistent Facebook status, photo, and check-in buttons as well. The second image appears to be of a lockscreen with a full-screen photo, iOS-style notification bubbles, and a circular avatar area at the bottom that presumably pulls in your Facebook photo. We still can’t say for sure that these images are the real deal, but they do fit with the surface-level augmentations to Android that we previously heard would make up the new Facebook Home experience. In less than 24 hours, we’ll know for sure.

On Thursday, Facebook is poised to unveil an HTC Android handset running custom software, making the social network the new mobile homescreen — or so a long-running series of rumors suggests. Reports of Facebook developing a branded handset with a smartphone manufacturer date back to 2010, but the few descriptions that have surfaced since have provided little information on the long-deferred device or its software. This time feels different. Not only are these rumors tied to a specific event explicitly devoted to mobile, but the last few days’ leaks have been unusually detailed. Those details point in a direction that makes more sense than Facebook producing its own phone, and instead look like software that could work on any Android device. We’re finally starting to get a sense of what Facebook will likely unveil later this week.

Either part or all of the smartphone’s homescreen will be devoted to information from the user’s Facebook account, according to similar reports from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Core phone features such as the camera may directly integrate with Facebook, automatically storing and sharing pictures. Facebook’s previously made stand-alone apps, including Messenger, may also be incorporated into the new software. The theory is that the more prominently Facebook is featured on the device, the more likely users will engage with the network.

We’re just a few days away from Facebook’s big Android-focused event at which the company is expected to introduce an HTC phone with a Facebook-specific app launcher. Now, we’re seeing an image that could be the first look at the device itself — it appears to be called the HTC First. However, it’s hard to say yet that this image is what we’ll be seeing on stage Thursday. For starters, some quick analysis shows that the HTC First logo was likely just Photoshopped into the image (see below).

The phone itself also looks extremely generic — there’s no HTC branding to be found and it really just looks like a slightly tweaked iPhone. On the other hand, the image came from @evleaks, one of the more reliable sources for phones ahead of launch. It also matches up with a description from 9to5Google, who heard last week that the phone would be reminiscent of the iPhone with a home button centered at the bottom. We also found out yesterday that the device would be a mid-range phone. It’s hard to say yet whether or not this image is legit, but we’ll find out in just a few short days.

We’re just a few days away from the Facebook Home event at which the social media giant is expected to release a true “Facebook Phone” by HTC. However, Android Police have apparently gotten their hands on a system software dump from the rumored device and have released a number of details about what Facebook may be unveiling on Thursday. Essentially, it sounds like Facebook Home will be a launcher replacement that runs on top of HTC’s Sense 4.5 skin and Android 4.1.2 — not the recently-introduced Sense 5 that runs on the HTC One.

Unfortunately, Android Police wasn’t able to log into Facebook with the software they received, as it is only currently accepting logins from Facebook employees. This means that most of the details behind the user experience of this new phone are still shrouded in mystery. However, it seems that Facebook Home will just be an extension of the existing Facebook app integrated into an Android launcher — much like other third-party launchers such as Nova, Facebook Home won’t change the core OS at all, it’ll just provide a new way of interacting with it on the front end. There’s also some evidence that Facebook Home will run on phones besides the HTC device it’s set to premier on — some permissions within the software will let it run on HTC Sense, stock Android, and TouchWiz, which Android Police believes is a sign the app is destined for Google Play.

Rumors indicate that Facebook’s upcoming event scheduled for April 4th will reveal an HTC-made phone running a version of Android customized to deeply integrate the social network’s services. The New York Times reports that the main announcement at the event will be this Facebook-focused version of Android, which will replace the typical homescreen with the user’s main Facebook page. Additionally, the default camera and messaging apps will be replaced by Facebook’s own apps for the two services, which are already available on other Android devices.

The New York Times report, which cites a Facebook employee familiar with the company’s plans, expands on rumors The Wall Street Journal published earlier this morning. It’s not yet clear if this will be merely a skinned version of Android like Samsung’s TouchWiz or if it will be a fork off of Android — an approach Amazon opted for with the Kindle Fire. The Journal refers to the rumored new features as an app, while the Times discusses a “version of Android.” It’s possible Facebook will offer an alternative launcher, which would replace the main Android screens and the app drawer with features suited to the social network. Both reports imply that this Facebook-focused version of Android will be available on devices other than this yet-to-be-announced HTC phone, suggesting users may be able to enable it on other devices.