6 ms·

Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

102 points by trevin 14y ago

nollidge 14y ago
Why? EDIT: seriously, why? Were people really clamoring for more Facebook in their lives?
- gknoy 14y ago
  I wouldn't mind Facebook messaging being more tightly integrated with my text messaging interface. My android phone lets me put text messages as a widget on my lock screen, for example -- but I can't do that with FB messages, which is something I use a lot more than SMS. Nearly everything else about Facebook I could care less about, but FB messaging is something that my wife and I use a LOT.
  - tolle 14y ago
    You can use their messenger app for SMS as well. Might solve your issue, but I'd imagine that there is some drawbacks. I have not tested it myself.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
minimaxir 14y ago
Facebook is touting Facebook Home as a "visually rich stream of media," but all it's going to turn out to be is a feed of filtered food and memes.
- flyt 14y ago
  If you don't like what your friends post to Facebook then you should reconsider if you want to be friends with them, or if you should begin using the tools FB already provides to control the content in your feed.
  - Scriptor 14y ago
    Many people use facebook as just another way to communicate with friends, either through messages, wall posts, or event invites. I don't really care if they post uninteresting stuff to their own wall. Actually, it'd be rather sad if I reevaluated my friendships just based on that.
    - criley 14y ago
      >"Actually, it'd be rather sad if I reevaluated my friendships just based on that." This is unfair, you responded to someone who was saying "If you want a higher quality stream, then curate more aggressively using the tools available to you" And I feel like you ignored the meat of his post to make a cheap shot on the idea of "losing friends over memes". That wasn't his point, and I think you knew that. The tools he mentions allow you to control what appears in your feed without unfriending.
      - Scriptor 14y ago
        His words were (emphasis mine): > you should reconsider if you want to be friends with them, OR if you should begin using the tools FB already provides So if we get technical about it, he presents two options: Curate more aggressively or reconsider whether you want to be friends with them. Maybe he meant that tongue-in-cheek, but at least when I first read it it sounded like he said you should either use facebook's tools or rethink your actual friendship with that person.
  - vowelless 14y ago
    > If you don't like what your friends post to Facebook then you should reconsider if you want to be friends with them That seems like an over-reaction. My friends posting stupid memes on facebook has little bearing to my friendship to them.
    - jasonlotito 14y ago
      > My friends posting stupid memes on facebook has little bearing to my friendship to them. Pretty sure you meant to say "My friends on facebook have little bearing to my friendship to them." Regardless, the rest of that sentence is: > or if you should begin using the tools FB already provides to control the content in your feed.
- 27182818284 14y ago
  I thought something similar, "None of the photos that would come up for me are as great looking as the ones in this demo." To be expected, but you're right, it is going to look totally different and spammy in someone's hands.
  - minimaxir 14y ago
    Also, the Cover Feed assumes that all photos are portraits or landscapes. That's a dangerous assumption because not all content in s typical photo can fit into a 16:9 rectangle without causing inconsistencies (including the aforementioned square memes)
51Cards 14y ago
My initial thoughts (without having a ton of time to really absorb this yet) is that Apple's closed operating system may have just become a liability. The open 'intent' model of Android is really at the core of making something like this possible. In turn though does this also allow Facebook to take over "too many" aspects of Android and cut into Google's revenue streams as well? All things I'm still pondering. As an aside... I am a big HTC fan. Nice to see them able to get on board at the ground level of some new projects.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  In this case it's not intents, it's that the homescreen is a replaceable app. This is the most thoroughly rethought homescreen replacement I've seen.
  - ajross 14y ago
    The launcher communicates with the rest of the framework through Intents. It's mostly the same point. If the launcher was responsible for the actual app management (launching via zygote, maintenance of the registry and permissions databases, clean up on uninstall...), you'd never be able to replace it. The Intents framework is what allows the launcher to be "just a replaceable app."
    - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
      I guess you're right, but there's nothing about intents that assumes the homescreen would be replaceable. That the homescreen is launched via intents must have been a conscious design decision, right?
      - wvenable 14y ago
        It was definitely a conscious design decision. It's basically the intent of what happens when you press the Home button. The UI for the end-user is identical as for every other intent (and managed the same way in the settings). If you install a new application that handles the Home intent, the next time you press the Home button you get the usual "What app do you want to use to handle this" dialog with the "Just once" and "Always" options.
ameen 14y ago
The UI while being pretty and having cool animations is actually faulty. Touch targets aren't large enough (comment, like, etc as seen from the demo)
- patpalombo 14y ago
  I agree with this, even though I have to admit I kind of like the way they designed and integrated interactions with FB functions (double taps, swipes, ecc) in a launcher. Overall I think what they are doing here is a really smart choice both with creating something that could turn every android phone in a "FB phone", and with FB certified devices.
nthitz 14y ago
Homescreens definitely can improve on phones. A huge multipage listing of Apps I have seems very inefficient. And while I'm nervous with this being from FB, I hope we see more unique home screens popping up.
- cmbaus 14y ago
  I think Facebook is moving in the right direction on this, but I do agree that it is concerning that Facebook could become the jump off point for users.
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  Agreed, when I read the article I came to the conclusion that Facebook just defined a new "something", not channel but maybe an aspect is a better description, to the app ecosystem. I hate lauding Facebook but this really seems like they are getting all the upside of forking Android or doing their own hardware with almost none of the downside (massive engineering costs).
mik3y 14y ago
Setting aside the Launcher replacement, the most technically surprising aspect of this demo was the messaging app: it showed avatars and a messaging window hovering above the currently-focused app. As far as I know, this isn't possible on stock Android. You can make a non-fullscreen window, but you can't continue to interact with the layer behind it. This may be the motivation for the "set of OEM guidelines" Mark very casually mentioned. I wonder what other enhancements they call for..
- krschultz 14y ago
  They also cribbed the way iOS does notifications and put it on Android. Instead of messages being in a drawer on the top, they show up on the home screen immediately. The Facebook Android app feels a little too iOS flavored to me (the Action Bar sliding in its entirety to the right when you slide in that menu is wack), and Facebook Home looks a little bit iOS flavored as well.
- andrewmunn 14y ago
  Actually chat heads works on stock Android! Not sure the exact wizardry that went into implementing it, but it's very impressive to use.
  - shagrath 14y ago
    probably like explained here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8073803/android-multi-touch-and-type-system-overlay http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8073803/android-multi-tou... but imho, given they already downgraded the behavior in 4.0, this is really looking like a security hole that might be closed in a next Android release.
  - owenwil 14y ago
    ...Do you have an APK?
- Shooti 14y ago
  It's perfectly possible. They're doing it by setting the window type as TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT, and then switching it to TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY as needed. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowManager.LayoutParams.html#TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowMa...
ryanhandby 14y ago
Before we all "lose our minds" keep in mind, FB is a slow player. There will be something, an extension of this that im sure will be simply awesome.
- wutbrodo 14y ago
  Are they a slow player? I can't think of many examples of them doing something that seemed like they were playing the long game (this is no doubt in part due to the fact that they're relatively young as a company).
dude_abides 14y ago
Some serious lack of imagination on Facebook's part. They didn't go the hardware route since it is a lot of work. They didn't go the route of forking Android, since then they would have to partner with hardware manufacturers and that is a lot of work So what do they build instead? A deeply intrusive fork of their App that is not even going to be available on all Androids!
- TannerLD 14y ago
  I don't have a great understanding of Android, but what would make them choose to limit the app's current phone options to a handful?
  - smackfu 14y ago
    Fast phones make sure the app works well, for one. It's like putting an app out for iPhone 5 only.
  - arindone 14y ago
    Depends on the OS -- Jellybean is different from Ice Cream Sandwich is different from Gingerbread is different from... If you want something like this on all Android phones, it's more than just making an app to put in the Google Play store -- it's understanding the ins and outs of the different nuances of each OS...
  - krschultz 14y ago
    There is a big gap between the phones on Gingerbread (Android API level 10) and post Ice Cream Sandwich (Android API level 15). Supporting older versions requires a lot of support libraries which themselves have some bugs. I kind of have a feeling that pre-ICS level phones is going to be in someways be like supporting IE6 down the road, so Facebook is just avoiding that. It's also definitely not a 'handful' of phones. As of right now 55% of users are on the post-ICS versions. (http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html). The ecosystem has somewhat consolidated post ICS as well. There are now fewer phones each with more users which makes testing easier.
- 14y ago
suyash 14y ago
It will track all your data now, this app come installed from OEM's like HTC which would be hard to uninstall and would track all over information all the time. #privacyconcern
- 3825 14y ago
  The promise with Ice-cream Sandwich was that you can disable any pre-installed app regardless of the skin. They would still take up storage space but for all intents and purposes, they don't exist. From an OEM's point of view, is there a way to circumvent this and still have access to Google Play Store?
epo 14y ago
Facebook's Segway moment?
isopod 14y ago
The giant gap between the beautiful photos of beautiful people doing enviable things in beautiful places used in demos such as these (and in Apple ones as well) and the mundane, poorly-focused, washed-out, ill-composed photos and meme reposts that are most likely to appear on your FB feed at any given moment always takes the shine off of products such as these for me, despite how much more useful or technologically advanced they may be from their predecessors. Being reminded my life is not going to be as exciting as the floor model is never a good user experience.
- psbp 14y ago
  Exactly. How terrible will this be when you're not in the mood to socialize or when something discouraging happens in your social life? This has a good use case for 10% of smartphone users maybe 80% of the time. I'm going to predict that this will turn people off of facebook more than it creates more engagement.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Finally! I have advantage for having a lot of friends who are filmmakers and photographers! Heh.
ameen 14y ago
Facebook Home IMO might as well have been targeted towards the teen crowd. They would eat this up. The most used apps on their devices usually are Facebook, Messaging, Twitter, Instagram, Browser.
gouthamvel 14y ago
is anyone else getting a 404 not found when you click on "PRE-ORDER THE HTC FIRST" at http://facebook.com/home http://facebook.com/home
Aardwolf 14y ago
"Phones are communication devices and we spend all day message, in today’s appcentric world, messaging is treated like another app." Seems like I'm not the target audience. I've had some form of cell phone for 12 years now, and I always needed the cheapest possible account/prepaid thing, because I don't call/SMS enough. If they gave 1000 SMSes, I guess I had like 990 left at the end of the month. Until now that is. Now suddenly there is a resource in the cell phone accounts I need lots of: data. Not to message and stuff, but to browse the internet. My most common form of communication on it is on forums and email replies I guess. So phones got useful for people who don't communicate much over a phone? :)
- smackfu 14y ago
  For perspective, the target audience often will not even know a person's email address.
donaldguy 14y ago
I'm really sad about the still-all-too-walled-garden: The ideas of active information at a glance is cool, but honestly, for it to be really useful for me, I don't want just FB, and definitely not just photos. I'd be happier with some Flipboard-style article previews, and I'd like some of that information to come from Twitter, Reddit/HN, or even (gasp) Google+. Similarly chatheads are pretty cool, but with my current set of frequent conversation-partners, it wouldn't be all that useful to me without letting google talk/babble into the mix. (though I appreciate they at least included SMS). I am also REAL concerned about all the content visible on the lock screen: if you misplace your phone, suddenly all your friends' "friends only" posts are "friends + that guy who found/stole my friend's phone". ... and overall I'm just fundamentally torn. On the one hand the whole idea just screams "Digiphrenia". Their own advertisement supported this better than I could articulate. On the other hand, I still fundamentally am excited about the base idea of keeping people actively connected and am pretty onboard for the people-first focus.
- smackfu 14y ago
  Flipboard is certainly welcome to develop that. I'm not sure why Facebook would do it.
kellyhclay 14y ago
Facebook has always wanted to collect as much personal information from its users as possible. This is a brilliant move to get this data the easiest way possible - they didn't even need create their own phone or even their own OS. Android users - especially teens - will eat this up and FB will instantly be able to gather all the info they want without the target demographic even thinking about the privacy implications.
jcomis 14y ago
I do think replacing the launcher was a smart idea, but I'm just not sure if that kind of integration is useful in FB's case. Maybe I'm a minority, but I just don't route my life through FB and do not want to, at all. This only seems useful to people who exclusively use their phone for FB. Why would I want a layer of FB between me and the home screen where all my other apps live? The UI did look pretty slick, though at times it seemed like some elements were quite tiny for touch targets. Overall: I really loathe the term "chathead"
- drivingmenuts 14y ago
  Depends on what sort of permissions FB asks for on install. My suspicion is that they'll want everything they can get their hands on (location at a minimum). Eventually, they're going to want to replace your phonebook, etc. The sad thing is, people will just let them.
  - mik3y 14y ago
    > Depends on what sort of permissions FB asks for on install. That's the nice thing about being pre-installed on Android: there's no asking for permission. (And you get access to SIGNATURE_OR_SYSTEM permissions, too.)
    - drivingmenuts 14y ago
      Do I trust Google with that information? I used to and now it's probably too late. Do I trust FB with that information? Oh, hells no.
    - jcomis 14y ago
      That's a really interesting point. I wonder where the permissions are covered in the preinstalled case. Some fine print somewhere I'm sure.
  - r00fus 14y ago
    They definitely want to replace your phone book. Perhaps even your address book (take me to where Jon R's office - even Siri would balk b/c you likely would not have his office address in your addy book). If the accuracy was high, these would be killer features for many people.
itsprofitbaron 14y ago
I think that this is a smart move by Facebook building a layer over Android. At least at this stage anyway because, they’ve now positioned themselves in a great position because they’ve made it harder for Google to go back on the openness of Android which has allowed them to build Facebook Home in the first place. Likewise, if carriers and users devote a lot of time to the application then, Facebook have bought themselves time to eventually fork Android and create a new revenue stream like, Amazon have done with the Kindle.
thechut 14y ago
Great, now Facebook can serve ads straight to my phone home screen too.
jboggan 14y ago
I only want this if Zuck's smiling face is at the bottom center of my phone, all the time. Still, does Facebook having more integration into every aspect of our digital experience really improve our quality of life? I feel like we are already well into an uncanny valley of Facebook saturation.
- arnorhs 14y ago
  I guess you could change your facebook profile photo to be Mark's face. To your question it comes down to whether or not you feel like Facebook improves our quality of life, and whether or not its effects are not already maximized. If you answer yes to both those questions, having Facebook more deeply integrated into your phone might help to maximize the benefits. Also, if you spend 90% of your time on your phone on Facebook (I don't but I'm sure most geeks are not an accurate representation of the normal user) then you might prefer to have a deeply integrated Facebook phone with access to other apps/services on top of that.
  - jboggan 14y ago
    I just want an app that actually makes me the person I appear to be on Facebook.
mik3y 14y ago
Those surprised that Facebook didn't "fork" Android are missing the point: A fork of Android from FB will not probably look like a new OS, but rather a new distribution channel (Play store). Play is the biggest leverage Google has against OEMs, and FB has to consider that Google could drop any of these apps at a moment's notice (make up a reason). Here, FB now has a pliant OEM (HTC) and the beginnings of an OEM integration program (it was mentioned in the talk). How hard would it be for FB to build an app store, as a contingency if nothing else?
mladenkovacevic 14y ago
Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is. Apps are a way to gauge and guide intent. So if I want to send an email, I open an email app. If I want to check my schedule, I open the calendar app. These are established and agreed upon concepts and apps are just representations of those concepts. With Home, Facebook is saying that every time you turn on your phone "you probably want to see what your friends are up to." This assumes that we're all super social and are genuinely interested in people in our Facebook-lives. I think many people use Facebook out of a sense of obligation to be part of that scene (kind of like LinkedIn). But there probably are a lot of people who instinctively hit that Facebook app as soon as they turn on their phone and for them this will be great. I don't think it will drive more usage from that first group, though (and I think that should be Facebook's primary goal).
- mtgx 14y ago
  Yes, their whole "this is the future" strategy is actually that way because it needs to be the future for Facebook. So their view is extremely biased in that regards, just like the whole auto-sharing thing, which I consider pretty anti-user, but it's something Facebook needed for their business.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  I don't think the two concepts are mutually exclusive. I've noticed with myself that no matter what I'm doing, and what apps I'm using on my desktop, Facebook is always open in a tab. Which is to say, my high-intent and highly-guided behavior on the computer sits on top of a constant baseline social presence. Personally I'd be happy if Facebook Messenger was built into the phone such that I can respond to messages without breaking my flow in my current app. But I'm on iOS, so I'm really not holding my breath. Putting social networking into the background IMO aligns it closer to how I actually use it. Facebook as a high-intent application doesn't seem to work quite right.
- altcognito 14y ago
  > Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is Also, people won't mistake the Facebook app for their friends when ads start appearing.
iSnow 14y ago
At $99, that's a great offer. I wonder if you can install ICS instead of FB Home.
- 3825 14y ago
  I would take the unlocked $349 Nexus 4[1] over a $99 device with a two-year contract. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16gb https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16g...
ereckers 14y ago
I see some people in the comments mentioning, "This is like the native capabilities of a Windows Phone". Without using it I don't know for sure, but I can see that take.
dirkdk 14y ago
Interesting. So it is not an OS or UI layer baked into the OS, it is an app with deep integration. In theory you can do it on any Android phone. Starting out with only 5 phones though, so it requires probably a lot of testing and high end specs. They do a lot of things on Android now that you cant on iOS (background processing, replacing Lock and Home screen) that will make Android look better. A lot of interaction that is brand new, and will take time to get to like. In my view, it does turn your phone into a Facebook phone and that might be too much FB for some
crapshoot101 14y ago
Seems like a first step towards a pure-play FB OS, no? Built on Android? Those of you with a significantly greater technical understanding than me (aka, everyone here) may have a better take of what's possible.
cadetzero 14y ago
Wow, they built this when their Facebook app on android still consumes an ungodly amount of system resources? I have no faith in this from a technical perspective.
- Taylorious 14y ago
  I have to agree. This whole thing puzzles me. The Android FB app is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Some basic functions don't work. Like when someone tags me in a photo and a notification pops up, I click the notification and their app crashes. It can't display a friggin picture from a website. FB is just a website, how can they not get their own app to work with their own website? Seriously if you cant make an app in Android that works, how are you going to roll your own version of the OS?
bane 14y ago
Considering the craptastic experience the regular FB app is on Android (seriously, visiting FB in the browser is a better experience), I feel a definite "meh" about this news.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
philfreo 14y ago
So does Google like this or hate this?
- fizzbar 14y ago
  Hates it with the fire of a thousand suns. All those ad impressions, all skipping right over the Google-supplied (and now invisible) OS... Now spending every moment they have with their device basically entirely in Facebook.
mikeleeorg 14y ago
There are some interesting parallels to the Windows Phone UI here. As I understand it (and I don't own a Windows Phone), Microsoft's intent was to provide a UX that is more social and tied to user tasks rather than apps. Facebook Home looks like they use a similar underlying concept, with a stronger focus on social interactions rather than user tasks. Apps are still there, but are not the main focus. I rarely use the Facebook app on my phone, so I'm not their target audience. However, I've seen a fair number of teens and young adults absorbed in the Facebook app on their Android phones (yup, Android, more than iPhones, because they're cheaper). So it will really be interesting to see if that audience takes to Facebook Home too.
fimoreth 14y ago
Is there any word on if facebook will be including advertisements in this at all? It looks very sleek, but having ads come up would be a huge deterant.
bsbechtel 14y ago
Facebook has done a great job in recent years developing ways for individuals to absorb more content created by their friends. However, they don't seem to be doing much to encourage people to share or post engaging content....as a data point of one, I find myself sharing things on Facebook significantly less often than I did last year at this time.
Mahn 14y ago
Looks interesting, but I don't really see it taking off. I just can't picture normal people thinking "wow, this is just what I needed, I'm so downloading this!"

102 points by trevin 14y ago

nollidge 14y ago

Why? EDIT: seriously, why? Were people really clamoring for more Facebook in their lives?

gknoy 14y ago
I wouldn't mind Facebook messaging being more tightly integrated with my text messaging interface. My android phone lets me put text messages as a widget on my lock screen, for example -- but I can't do that with FB messages, which is something I use a lot more than SMS. Nearly everything else about Facebook I could care less about, but FB messaging is something that my wife and I use a LOT.
- tolle 14y ago
  You can use their messenger app for SMS as well. Might solve your issue, but I'd imagine that there is some drawbacks. I have not tested it myself.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

minimaxir 14y ago

Facebook is touting Facebook Home as a "visually rich stream of media," but all it's going to turn out to be is a feed of filtered food and memes.

flyt 14y ago
If you don't like what your friends post to Facebook then you should reconsider if you want to be friends with them, or if you should begin using the tools FB already provides to control the content in your feed.
- Scriptor 14y ago
  Many people use facebook as just another way to communicate with friends, either through messages, wall posts, or event invites. I don't really care if they post uninteresting stuff to their own wall. Actually, it'd be rather sad if I reevaluated my friendships just based on that.
  - criley 14y ago
    >"Actually, it'd be rather sad if I reevaluated my friendships just based on that." This is unfair, you responded to someone who was saying "If you want a higher quality stream, then curate more aggressively using the tools available to you" And I feel like you ignored the meat of his post to make a cheap shot on the idea of "losing friends over memes". That wasn't his point, and I think you knew that. The tools he mentions allow you to control what appears in your feed without unfriending.
    - Scriptor 14y ago
      His words were (emphasis mine): > you should reconsider if you want to be friends with them, OR if you should begin using the tools FB already provides So if we get technical about it, he presents two options: Curate more aggressively or reconsider whether you want to be friends with them. Maybe he meant that tongue-in-cheek, but at least when I first read it it sounded like he said you should either use facebook's tools or rethink your actual friendship with that person.
- vowelless 14y ago
  > If you don't like what your friends post to Facebook then you should reconsider if you want to be friends with them That seems like an over-reaction. My friends posting stupid memes on facebook has little bearing to my friendship to them.
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    > My friends posting stupid memes on facebook has little bearing to my friendship to them. Pretty sure you meant to say "My friends on facebook have little bearing to my friendship to them." Regardless, the rest of that sentence is: > or if you should begin using the tools FB already provides to control the content in your feed.
27182818284 14y ago
I thought something similar, "None of the photos that would come up for me are as great looking as the ones in this demo." To be expected, but you're right, it is going to look totally different and spammy in someone's hands.
- minimaxir 14y ago
  Also, the Cover Feed assumes that all photos are portraits or landscapes. That's a dangerous assumption because not all content in s typical photo can fit into a 16:9 rectangle without causing inconsistencies (including the aforementioned square memes)

51Cards 14y ago

My initial thoughts (without having a ton of time to really absorb this yet) is that Apple's closed operating system may have just become a liability. The open 'intent' model of Android is really at the core of making something like this possible. In turn though does this also allow Facebook to take over "too many" aspects of Android and cut into Google's revenue streams as well? All things I'm still pondering. As an aside... I am a big HTC fan. Nice to see them able to get on board at the ground level of some new projects.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
In this case it's not intents, it's that the homescreen is a replaceable app. This is the most thoroughly rethought homescreen replacement I've seen.
- ajross 14y ago
  The launcher communicates with the rest of the framework through Intents. It's mostly the same point. If the launcher was responsible for the actual app management (launching via zygote, maintenance of the registry and permissions databases, clean up on uninstall...), you'd never be able to replace it. The Intents framework is what allows the launcher to be "just a replaceable app."
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    I guess you're right, but there's nothing about intents that assumes the homescreen would be replaceable. That the homescreen is launched via intents must have been a conscious design decision, right?
    - wvenable 14y ago
      It was definitely a conscious design decision. It's basically the intent of what happens when you press the Home button. The UI for the end-user is identical as for every other intent (and managed the same way in the settings). If you install a new application that handles the Home intent, the next time you press the Home button you get the usual "What app do you want to use to handle this" dialog with the "Just once" and "Always" options.

ameen 14y ago

The UI while being pretty and having cool animations is actually faulty. Touch targets aren't large enough (comment, like, etc as seen from the demo)

patpalombo 14y ago
I agree with this, even though I have to admit I kind of like the way they designed and integrated interactions with FB functions (double taps, swipes, ecc) in a launcher. Overall I think what they are doing here is a really smart choice both with creating something that could turn every android phone in a "FB phone", and with FB certified devices.

nthitz 14y ago

Homescreens definitely can improve on phones. A huge multipage listing of Apps I have seems very inefficient. And while I'm nervous with this being from FB, I hope we see more unique home screens popping up.

cmbaus 14y ago
I think Facebook is moving in the right direction on this, but I do agree that it is concerning that Facebook could become the jump off point for users.
jbigelow76 14y ago
Agreed, when I read the article I came to the conclusion that Facebook just defined a new "something", not channel but maybe an aspect is a better description, to the app ecosystem. I hate lauding Facebook but this really seems like they are getting all the upside of forking Android or doing their own hardware with almost none of the downside (massive engineering costs).

mik3y 14y ago

Setting aside the Launcher replacement, the most technically surprising aspect of this demo was the messaging app: it showed avatars and a messaging window hovering above the currently-focused app. As far as I know, this isn't possible on stock Android. You can make a non-fullscreen window, but you can't continue to interact with the layer behind it. This may be the motivation for the "set of OEM guidelines" Mark very casually mentioned. I wonder what other enhancements they call for..

krschultz 14y ago
They also cribbed the way iOS does notifications and put it on Android. Instead of messages being in a drawer on the top, they show up on the home screen immediately. The Facebook Android app feels a little too iOS flavored to me (the Action Bar sliding in its entirety to the right when you slide in that menu is wack), and Facebook Home looks a little bit iOS flavored as well.
andrewmunn 14y ago
Actually chat heads works on stock Android! Not sure the exact wizardry that went into implementing it, but it's very impressive to use.
- shagrath 14y ago
  probably like explained here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8073803/android-multi-touch-and-type-system-overlay http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8073803/android-multi-tou... but imho, given they already downgraded the behavior in 4.0, this is really looking like a security hole that might be closed in a next Android release.
- owenwil 14y ago
  ...Do you have an APK?
Shooti 14y ago
It's perfectly possible. They're doing it by setting the window type as TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT, and then switching it to TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY as needed. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowManager.LayoutParams.html#TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowMa...

ryanhandby 14y ago

Before we all "lose our minds" keep in mind, FB is a slow player. There will be something, an extension of this that im sure will be simply awesome.

wutbrodo 14y ago
Are they a slow player? I can't think of many examples of them doing something that seemed like they were playing the long game (this is no doubt in part due to the fact that they're relatively young as a company).

dude_abides 14y ago

Some serious lack of imagination on Facebook's part. They didn't go the hardware route since it is a lot of work. They didn't go the route of forking Android, since then they would have to partner with hardware manufacturers and that is a lot of work So what do they build instead? A deeply intrusive fork of their App that is not even going to be available on all Androids!

TannerLD 14y ago
I don't have a great understanding of Android, but what would make them choose to limit the app's current phone options to a handful?
- smackfu 14y ago
  Fast phones make sure the app works well, for one. It's like putting an app out for iPhone 5 only.
- arindone 14y ago
  Depends on the OS -- Jellybean is different from Ice Cream Sandwich is different from Gingerbread is different from... If you want something like this on all Android phones, it's more than just making an app to put in the Google Play store -- it's understanding the ins and outs of the different nuances of each OS...
- krschultz 14y ago
  There is a big gap between the phones on Gingerbread (Android API level 10) and post Ice Cream Sandwich (Android API level 15). Supporting older versions requires a lot of support libraries which themselves have some bugs. I kind of have a feeling that pre-ICS level phones is going to be in someways be like supporting IE6 down the road, so Facebook is just avoiding that. It's also definitely not a 'handful' of phones. As of right now 55% of users are on the post-ICS versions. (http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html). The ecosystem has somewhat consolidated post ICS as well. There are now fewer phones each with more users which makes testing easier.
14y ago

suyash 14y ago

It will track all your data now, this app come installed from OEM's like HTC which would be hard to uninstall and would track all over information all the time. #privacyconcern

3825 14y ago
The promise with Ice-cream Sandwich was that you can disable any pre-installed app regardless of the skin. They would still take up storage space but for all intents and purposes, they don't exist. From an OEM's point of view, is there a way to circumvent this and still have access to Google Play Store?

epo 14y ago

Facebook's Segway moment?

isopod 14y ago

The giant gap between the beautiful photos of beautiful people doing enviable things in beautiful places used in demos such as these (and in Apple ones as well) and the mundane, poorly-focused, washed-out, ill-composed photos and meme reposts that are most likely to appear on your FB feed at any given moment always takes the shine off of products such as these for me, despite how much more useful or technologically advanced they may be from their predecessors. Being reminded my life is not going to be as exciting as the floor model is never a good user experience.

psbp 14y ago
Exactly. How terrible will this be when you're not in the mood to socialize or when something discouraging happens in your social life? This has a good use case for 10% of smartphone users maybe 80% of the time. I'm going to predict that this will turn people off of facebook more than it creates more engagement.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Finally! I have advantage for having a lot of friends who are filmmakers and photographers! Heh.

ameen 14y ago

Facebook Home IMO might as well have been targeted towards the teen crowd. They would eat this up. The most used apps on their devices usually are Facebook, Messaging, Twitter, Instagram, Browser.

gouthamvel 14y ago

is anyone else getting a 404 not found when you click on "PRE-ORDER THE HTC FIRST" at http://facebook.com/home http://facebook.com/home

Aardwolf 14y ago

"Phones are communication devices and we spend all day message, in today’s appcentric world, messaging is treated like another app." Seems like I'm not the target audience. I've had some form of cell phone for 12 years now, and I always needed the cheapest possible account/prepaid thing, because I don't call/SMS enough. If they gave 1000 SMSes, I guess I had like 990 left at the end of the month. Until now that is. Now suddenly there is a resource in the cell phone accounts I need lots of: data. Not to message and stuff, but to browse the internet. My most common form of communication on it is on forums and email replies I guess. So phones got useful for people who don't communicate much over a phone? :)

smackfu 14y ago
For perspective, the target audience often will not even know a person's email address.

donaldguy 14y ago

I'm really sad about the still-all-too-walled-garden: The ideas of active information at a glance is cool, but honestly, for it to be really useful for me, I don't want just FB, and definitely not just photos. I'd be happier with some Flipboard-style article previews, and I'd like some of that information to come from Twitter, Reddit/HN, or even (gasp) Google+. Similarly chatheads are pretty cool, but with my current set of frequent conversation-partners, it wouldn't be all that useful to me without letting google talk/babble into the mix. (though I appreciate they at least included SMS). I am also REAL concerned about all the content visible on the lock screen: if you misplace your phone, suddenly all your friends' "friends only" posts are "friends + that guy who found/stole my friend's phone". ... and overall I'm just fundamentally torn. On the one hand the whole idea just screams "Digiphrenia". Their own advertisement supported this better than I could articulate. On the other hand, I still fundamentally am excited about the base idea of keeping people actively connected and am pretty onboard for the people-first focus.

smackfu 14y ago
Flipboard is certainly welcome to develop that. I'm not sure why Facebook would do it.

kellyhclay 14y ago

Facebook has always wanted to collect as much personal information from its users as possible. This is a brilliant move to get this data the easiest way possible - they didn't even need create their own phone or even their own OS. Android users - especially teens - will eat this up and FB will instantly be able to gather all the info they want without the target demographic even thinking about the privacy implications.

jcomis 14y ago

I do think replacing the launcher was a smart idea, but I'm just not sure if that kind of integration is useful in FB's case. Maybe I'm a minority, but I just don't route my life through FB and do not want to, at all. This only seems useful to people who exclusively use their phone for FB. Why would I want a layer of FB between me and the home screen where all my other apps live? The UI did look pretty slick, though at times it seemed like some elements were quite tiny for touch targets. Overall: I really loathe the term "chathead"

drivingmenuts 14y ago
Depends on what sort of permissions FB asks for on install. My suspicion is that they'll want everything they can get their hands on (location at a minimum). Eventually, they're going to want to replace your phonebook, etc. The sad thing is, people will just let them.
- mik3y 14y ago
  > Depends on what sort of permissions FB asks for on install. That's the nice thing about being pre-installed on Android: there's no asking for permission. (And you get access to SIGNATURE_OR_SYSTEM permissions, too.)
  - drivingmenuts 14y ago
    Do I trust Google with that information? I used to and now it's probably too late. Do I trust FB with that information? Oh, hells no.
  - jcomis 14y ago
    That's a really interesting point. I wonder where the permissions are covered in the preinstalled case. Some fine print somewhere I'm sure.
- r00fus 14y ago
  They definitely want to replace your phone book. Perhaps even your address book (take me to where Jon R's office - even Siri would balk b/c you likely would not have his office address in your addy book). If the accuracy was high, these would be killer features for many people.

itsprofitbaron 14y ago

I think that this is a smart move by Facebook building a layer over Android. At least at this stage anyway because, they’ve now positioned themselves in a great position because they’ve made it harder for Google to go back on the openness of Android which has allowed them to build Facebook Home in the first place. Likewise, if carriers and users devote a lot of time to the application then, Facebook have bought themselves time to eventually fork Android and create a new revenue stream like, Amazon have done with the Kindle.

thechut 14y ago

Great, now Facebook can serve ads straight to my phone home screen too.

jboggan 14y ago

I only want this if Zuck's smiling face is at the bottom center of my phone, all the time. Still, does Facebook having more integration into every aspect of our digital experience really improve our quality of life? I feel like we are already well into an uncanny valley of Facebook saturation.

arnorhs 14y ago
I guess you could change your facebook profile photo to be Mark's face. To your question it comes down to whether or not you feel like Facebook improves our quality of life, and whether or not its effects are not already maximized. If you answer yes to both those questions, having Facebook more deeply integrated into your phone might help to maximize the benefits. Also, if you spend 90% of your time on your phone on Facebook (I don't but I'm sure most geeks are not an accurate representation of the normal user) then you might prefer to have a deeply integrated Facebook phone with access to other apps/services on top of that.
- jboggan 14y ago
  I just want an app that actually makes me the person I appear to be on Facebook.

mik3y 14y ago

Those surprised that Facebook didn't "fork" Android are missing the point: A fork of Android from FB will not probably look like a new OS, but rather a new distribution channel (Play store). Play is the biggest leverage Google has against OEMs, and FB has to consider that Google could drop any of these apps at a moment's notice (make up a reason). Here, FB now has a pliant OEM (HTC) and the beginnings of an OEM integration program (it was mentioned in the talk). How hard would it be for FB to build an app store, as a contingency if nothing else?

mladenkovacevic 14y ago

Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is. Apps are a way to gauge and guide intent. So if I want to send an email, I open an email app. If I want to check my schedule, I open the calendar app. These are established and agreed upon concepts and apps are just representations of those concepts. With Home, Facebook is saying that every time you turn on your phone "you probably want to see what your friends are up to." This assumes that we're all super social and are genuinely interested in people in our Facebook-lives. I think many people use Facebook out of a sense of obligation to be part of that scene (kind of like LinkedIn). But there probably are a lot of people who instinctively hit that Facebook app as soon as they turn on their phone and for them this will be great. I don't think it will drive more usage from that first group, though (and I think that should be Facebook's primary goal).

mtgx 14y ago
Yes, their whole "this is the future" strategy is actually that way because it needs to be the future for Facebook. So their view is extremely biased in that regards, just like the whole auto-sharing thing, which I consider pretty anti-user, but it's something Facebook needed for their business.
potatolicious 14y ago
I don't think the two concepts are mutually exclusive. I've noticed with myself that no matter what I'm doing, and what apps I'm using on my desktop, Facebook is always open in a tab. Which is to say, my high-intent and highly-guided behavior on the computer sits on top of a constant baseline social presence. Personally I'd be happy if Facebook Messenger was built into the phone such that I can respond to messages without breaking my flow in my current app. But I'm on iOS, so I'm really not holding my breath. Putting social networking into the background IMO aligns it closer to how I actually use it. Facebook as a high-intent application doesn't seem to work quite right.
altcognito 14y ago
> Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is Also, people won't mistake the Facebook app for their friends when ads start appearing.

iSnow 14y ago

At $99, that's a great offer. I wonder if you can install ICS instead of FB Home.

3825 14y ago
I would take the unlocked $349 Nexus 4[1] over a $99 device with a two-year contract. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16gb https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16g...

ereckers 14y ago

I see some people in the comments mentioning, "This is like the native capabilities of a Windows Phone". Without using it I don't know for sure, but I can see that take.

dirkdk 14y ago

Interesting. So it is not an OS or UI layer baked into the OS, it is an app with deep integration. In theory you can do it on any Android phone. Starting out with only 5 phones though, so it requires probably a lot of testing and high end specs. They do a lot of things on Android now that you cant on iOS (background processing, replacing Lock and Home screen) that will make Android look better. A lot of interaction that is brand new, and will take time to get to like. In my view, it does turn your phone into a Facebook phone and that might be too much FB for some

crapshoot101 14y ago

Seems like a first step towards a pure-play FB OS, no? Built on Android? Those of you with a significantly greater technical understanding than me (aka, everyone here) may have a better take of what's possible.

cadetzero 14y ago

Wow, they built this when their Facebook app on android still consumes an ungodly amount of system resources? I have no faith in this from a technical perspective.

Taylorious 14y ago
I have to agree. This whole thing puzzles me. The Android FB app is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Some basic functions don't work. Like when someone tags me in a photo and a notification pops up, I click the notification and their app crashes. It can't display a friggin picture from a website. FB is just a website, how can they not get their own app to work with their own website? Seriously if you cant make an app in Android that works, how are you going to roll your own version of the OS?

bane 14y ago

Considering the craptastic experience the regular FB app is on Android (seriously, visiting FB in the browser is a better experience), I feel a definite "meh" about this news.

deleted 14y ago

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philfreo 14y ago

So does Google like this or hate this?

fizzbar 14y ago
Hates it with the fire of a thousand suns. All those ad impressions, all skipping right over the Google-supplied (and now invisible) OS... Now spending every moment they have with their device basically entirely in Facebook.

mikeleeorg 14y ago

There are some interesting parallels to the Windows Phone UI here. As I understand it (and I don't own a Windows Phone), Microsoft's intent was to provide a UX that is more social and tied to user tasks rather than apps. Facebook Home looks like they use a similar underlying concept, with a stronger focus on social interactions rather than user tasks. Apps are still there, but are not the main focus. I rarely use the Facebook app on my phone, so I'm not their target audience. However, I've seen a fair number of teens and young adults absorbed in the Facebook app on their Android phones (yup, Android, more than iPhones, because they're cheaper). So it will really be interesting to see if that audience takes to Facebook Home too.

fimoreth 14y ago

Is there any word on if facebook will be including advertisements in this at all? It looks very sleek, but having ads come up would be a huge deterant.

bsbechtel 14y ago

Facebook has done a great job in recent years developing ways for individuals to absorb more content created by their friends. However, they don't seem to be doing much to encourage people to share or post engaging content....as a data point of one, I find myself sharing things on Facebook significantly less often than I did last year at this time.

Mahn 14y ago

Looks interesting, but I don't really see it taking off. I just can't picture normal people thinking "wow, this is just what I needed, I'm so downloading this!"