Facebook Home launches on Android: First impressions

New York, April 5: Facebook has launched Home, a new Android home screen and user interface which provides deep integration with the billion-member social network. Announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at media events in California and London, Facebook Home takes over Android's lock and home screens, showing images, statuses and other content pulled from Facebook. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and at first, Facebook Home will only be available to download on just six Android devices: the HTC One, HTC One X, the HTC One X+, the Samsung Galaxy S III and 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Note II. Additionally, HTC and AT&T have teamed up to create a new phone called the HTC First, which will include Facebook Home pre-loaded and was supposedly designed specifically around the new interface.He said: "Today we are finally going to talk about that Facebook phone, or more accurately, we are going to talk about how you can turn your Android phone into a great social phone."Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google Inc.'s Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook's app.With Home, Facebook is inserting itself between users and Google, diverting them to the social network's own ads and services. It's taking advantage of the fact that Google places few restrictions on how phone manufacturers and software developers modify Android. By contrast, Facebook Home would not work on the iPhone without approval from Apple Inc., and close collaboration with the company.For Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. Compared to ads targeting PC surfers, mobile ads are a small market, but it's growing quickly. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion."Facebook Home can only reside on Android because only Google was daft enough to allow it," said independent phone analyst Horace Dediu, via Twitter.At the launch event Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Google was aware of the project, but Facebook didn't work them to create Home. Asked if he believed Google could change tactics and restrict apps like Home, he said it was theoretically possible, but highly unlikely for Google to do a "180-degree change" in its stance on Android's openness.Here are some of the features offered by Facebook Home.- Cover feed: A Cover Feed is a new feed that includes content from the News Feed and third party apps (e.g., Instagram, Foursquare). The feed is biased toward image-rich updates and posts. Here Facebook focused on people rather tasks or apps. With Cover Feed, you can start interacting with your friends quickly, rather than tapping around your apps, waiting for notifications to appear in your bar. Also since you'll be able to tap items that come up in Cover Feed to like them, so you're not required to open the full Facebook app.Notifications and Chat Heads: The home or lock screens will show notifications from Facebook friends (i.e., comments), text messages (from SMS and Messenger), missed calls and email. You can tap to open and respond then and there. Chat Heads is Home's messaging functionality. When you receive an SMS or Facebook Message an image of the sender's face appears on the home screen. It be tapped and addressed immediately or removed. Chat Heads can be placed in different locations on the screen.- App Launcher: Accessing Android Apps is easy. App launcher is a screen of app favorites or bookmarks. The rest of your apps are in the app drawer as with a conventional Android experience. In addition Home will show and give you the option to re-launch the last app used.- Instagram: HTC First is the only phone that comes with Instagram pre-loaded.