Facebook have just announced ‘Home’, a new launcher app for Android which makes connecting with your friends easier and quicker than it has ever been before.
The homescreen on Facebook Home is a constant feed of status updates, photos and other events shared by your friends. However, with it being something you simply add on top of your Android experience, you can still easily access an app drawer containing all your applications, just like you would now.
What is probably the main feature of Facebook Home, is the ability to respond to Facebook messages instantly from any application, without exiting it. A small circle will appear with the profile picture of the person contacting you, and you can choose to respond or wait for it to disappear. This feature can be turned off, but it really seems like one of the main features of the launcher.
I have to say I’m really impressed with Facebook for releasing this. It really seems like a neat idea, and something that I will probably use for a little while. However, my friends don’t share nice images of their children of sunny days, like the people used in demos, so I eventually think I’d get tired of having their content shoved at me the second I turn on my device. However, I really like the idea that you can respond to messages from anywhere, as that’s really the only real reason I use Facebook at the moment.
Facebook have confirmed that Home will be coming to Android tablets as well, but not for a couple of months at least.
Facebook Home will launch on the Google Play Store on April 12th on mobile, but only on a selected amount of handsets. The Verge reports: “it will initially be available on the HTC One and One X, and the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4, and Galaxy Note II. It’ll be rolling out broadly, but not at first.”
