Facebook Home ( Modified Android app or operating system )
The family of apps that puts your friends at the heart of your phone.
With
Home, everything on your phone gets friendlier. From the moment you
turn it on, you see a steady stream of friends’ posts and photos.
Upfront notifications and quick access to your essentials mean you’ll
never miss a moment. And you can keep chatting with friends, even when
you’re using other apps.
It’s all part of Facebook Home—there’s no other phone, app or operating system like it.
While Facebook’s press event focused on the “Home” app that runs on unforked Androids, HTC and Facebook have confirmed to me they modified Android to give the HTC First phone features not available in the downloadable Home app. This lets the First pipe in email and calendar notifications to its homescreen. And with the Facebook Home Program, other OEMs can get Facebook’s help fiddling with Android.
“Yes we had to implement some framework changes and some hooks to do the system notifications”, explained HTC Partner Manager Michael Goodwin. He tells us “all the things that could appear in your Android notification tray can appear within Facebook Home” thanks to the changes to Android.
During the event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Director Of Product Adam Mosseri also mentioned during the event that the HTC First was optimized to give the best possible Home experience.
[Update: After the event, I got to sit down with Mosseri, who told me "We didn't fork Android, we extended it. HTC was helpful, and they actually wrote the code. We've worked with OEMs a lot and we pre-load a lot but we've created new APIs with a partner before but they were pretty convenient." He then compared Google's openness to Apple's reliability, explaining "Apple and Android have taken very different approaches. Apple's want to ensure quality with control. I love iPhones, but Androids afford more opportunity. That's good and bad. There's more risk. People could make bad experience with [Android].”
These details confirm the intel from my sources last week that Facebook would debut an HTC handset running a modified version of Android that would give it extra functionality. The HTC First is now available for pre-order for $99.99 from AT&T, and will ship on April 10th for arrival on April 12th.
While Facebook’s press event focused on the “Home” app that runs on unforked Androids, HTC and Facebook have confirmed to me they modified Android to give the HTC First phone features not available in the downloadable Home app. This lets the First pipe in email and calendar notifications to its homescreen. And with the Facebook Home Program, other OEMs can get Facebook’s help fiddling with Android.
“Yes we had to implement some framework changes and some hooks to do the system notifications”, explained HTC Partner Manager Michael Goodwin. He tells us “all the things that could appear in your Android notification tray can appear within Facebook Home” thanks to the changes to Android.
During the event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Director Of Product Adam Mosseri also mentioned during the event that the HTC First was optimized to give the best possible Home experience.
[Update: After the event, I got to sit down with Mosseri, who told me "We didn't fork Android, we extended it. HTC was helpful, and they actually wrote the code. We've worked with OEMs a lot and we pre-load a lot but we've created new APIs with a partner before but they were pretty convenient." He then compared Google's openness to Apple's reliability, explaining "Apple and Android have taken very different approaches. Apple's want to ensure quality with control. I love iPhones, but Androids afford more opportunity. That's good and bad. There's more risk. People could make bad experience with [Android].”
These details confirm the intel from my sources last week that Facebook would debut an HTC handset running a modified version of Android that would give it extra functionality. The HTC First is now available for pre-order for $99.99 from AT&T, and will ship on April 10th for arrival on April 12th.
Already have an Android? Download Home for free.
Get
Facebook Home on your own Android in 3 steps. Add the Messenger and
Facebook apps for the full experience. Facebook Home for Android will be
available for download from the Google Play Store on certain devices,
including the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung
Galaxy Note II.
Get the free download on April 12.
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