‘Facebook Home’ For Android Unveiled

Facebook Home for Android has just been unveiled. The new integration with Android phones will allow users to get at their Facebook stuff that much easier while giving Facebook a new foothold in the smartphone market.

When the social media giant tipped the media off that there would be an announcement this week, quite a few imaginations started going wild. The announcement actually said that the company was going to show off their “new home on Android.”

It turns out that the company was being literal. Unbeknownst to those who were actually invited to the event and because they assumed it was going to be a bigger announcement, some will probably disappointed that we aren’t going to see a phone that is completely dedicated to the social media firm.

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new UI that will be debuting on a couple of select Google Android phones in the very near future. Zuckerberg explained just how this new UI would work. Facebook Home will act like a kind of wrapper for the current Android operating system.

Zuckerberg did claim that Home would basically create a new kind of phone, without actually having to produce a brand new phone. He added that this development will allow the smartphone to focus more on people than on applications.

The new service will be rolled out on April 12 for the HTC One, HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S III and S IV, and Samsung Galaxy Note II. AT&T and HTC are apparently also working on some new phones that will also sport this new UI.

Insiders have long been claiming that Zuckerberg has been pushing his employees to take a longer look at Android. He’s even encouraged them to move away from the iPhone in order to pick up Google’s OS. It seems there is an obvious reason why now.

Is Facebook Home enough to get you to switch to Android?

[Image by Pan Xunbin / Shutterstock.com]