It should come as little surprise to industry observers that Facebook plans to unveil both a rich, skinned version of its Android app at a press event tomorrow, along with the first hardware to run that experience out of the box. The phone, by HTC, is appropriately named “First”—appropriate because of its status as the première phone to undergo Facebookification and its similarity to the name of HTC’s newest flagship, the One. More screenshots follow:
Facebook Home has been well leaked by now, thanks in part to Android Police, information from Techcrunch, and 9to5’s own Mark Gurman. What we haven’t seen yet are many indications of the visual highlights of the collaboration; what will these “Facebook phones” look like when you’re actually using one?
In a word: good. From the imagery we’ve seen, Facebook Home incorporates a minimal aesthetic with a lot of focus on full-screen photography. As expected, there are hooks to the primary Facebook functions available from most menus, obviating the need to actually navigate to the dedicated app or site in many instances. It looks clean, well thought out, and will probably appeal to social networking aficionados with an appreciation for design—assuming the marketing campaign can convey the added value.
Full details will have to wait until tomorrow.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments