Facebook came out on the 4th of April to deliver its new product to the world, “Facebook Home.” The spread of gossip got out of hand with every one presuming the new creation is a “Facebook Phone” when actually it is “Facebook Home;” A piece of software for Android phones which when downloaded will take over the phone as a kind of phone wrap. The home screen and lock screen will become Facebook pages, presumably on the same style as the Facebook social website. Your home screen will be full of friend’s statuses and pictures and what everyone is doing in your social network. The idea that Zuckerberg has put across is that apps are for computers which are in the past so he has created Facebook software which immerses the phone to make it one with Facebook, instead of an app you just click on to open. This is a great idea as hand held devices are the future and most companies are having to change websites or create APP’s to be hand held friendly, but Facebook just seems to have took it that one step to further by immersing people in to a kind of Facebook life style.
The idea that it is a Facebook phone is not strictly true because the leaked information about a “Facebook Phone” is just an average SPEC HTC phone which is just the first phone to have “Facebook Home” integrated on it when bought, which is presumably why it has the name “HTC First”. The idea that it is a phone is possible because it will change the phone completely so it looks like Facebook and is constantly synced with it changing your hand held experience to a Facebook experience. Facebook lovers will want this app and think it’s great, but with it comes many future problems and many privacy problems.
When this software is downloaded on your phone everything will go through Facebook including phone texts and is implying it will filter all this just to give you what it “thinks” you want to see. There trailer for it brings the idea that Facebook will specifically choose which message to show you and which to hide, which seems a bit controlling for a piece of software for a phone. With this, Facebook will know where you are at all times and what you’re doing even when you don’t make a status about it, which leads to a lot of ethics issues being brought in to question. Is Facebook trying to control and dictate your life; Zucherberg has said in the future this will then have advertisements and links being displayed on the home screen, implying again that this will only produce advertisement that you will like for things you want to see or have, which is highly unlikely. This means that your phone now will have annoying pop ups on your screen trying to get you to do stuff that you don’t care about, and could annoy people with this psychological idea that it is telling you what to do. This is bad for the user but smart for Facebook though with Facebook home making a tidy profit from these advertisers.
A pet hate for most Facebook users is the constant changing of pages and every one having to adapt to a new layout which they have only just got settled with. Facebook home will be no different, monthly updates with constant changes means a constant nuisance to users. The idea that Facebook can change this so often and to what they want means you might have a phone you like and is easy to navigate through one month and the next be something you can’t stand, or find where things are.
On the upside the usual APS and Google play will still be on your phone as before and the idea of this constantly open Facebook app brings the idea of free messaging and video messaging making phone contracts cheaper, apple has made free text and phone calls going through via 3G/4G or your WIFI so this would lead to a inbuilt free service of messaging without the use of apps like what’s app which will probably start to worry network companies and if they have a future. If you’re a Facebook lover then this new software will be great but if not, there isn’t many good points to show about it.
“Facebook Home” and not the “Facebook Phone,” at the core of it, seems to be an APP that you can’t close, which turns your phone into a tracking device which could lead to your home screen getting cluttered. It’s a smart invention out whiting rivals Google on their lax rules for Google Play and its android software. This will make Facebook more money and continue to make a good future for itself as a company, but a as a customer just wanting a phone, this software seems to take control of your phone too much. “Facebook Home” will either be loved or hated, but opens up an interesting future for Facebook and Google in a battle which Google seems to be losing and the only way to stop them would be closing Google Plays open environment which could back fire in to apples favour. At the end of the day though this will be a free piece of software which can be downloaded or deleted if disliked, at the moment it is only integrated on one phone when bought, so until it is integrated on more phones before purchased it isn’t something that is going to matter a big deal.