Facebook Home hits 500k downloads in nine days

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.