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Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

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Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#72
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what sort of permissions FB asks for on install. My suspicion is that they'll want everything they can get their hands on (location at a minimum). Eventually, they're going to want to replace your phonebook, etc. The sad thing is, people will just let them.

> Depends on what sort of permissions FB asks for on install. That's the nice thing about being pre-installed on Android: there's no asking for permission. (And you get access to SIGNATURE_OR_SYSTEM permissions, too.)

Do I trust Google with that information? I used to and now it's probably too late.

Do I trust FB with that information? Oh, hells no.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#73

Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is. Apps are a way to gauge and guide intent. So if I want to send an email, I open an email app. If I want to check my schedule, I open the calendar app. These are established and…

I don't think the two concepts are mutually exclusive.

I've noticed with myself that no matter what I'm doing, and what apps I'm using on my desktop, Facebook is always open in a tab.

Which is to say, my high-intent and highly-guided behavior on the computer sits on top of a constant baseline social presence.

Personally I'd be happy if Facebook Messenger was built into the phone such that I can respond to messages without breaking my flow in my current app. But I'm on iOS, so I'm really not holding my breath.

Putting social networking into the background IMO aligns it closer to how I actually use it. Facebook as a high-intent application doesn't seem to work quite right.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#74
post #5

My initial thoughts (without having a ton of time to really absorb this yet) is that Apple's closed operating system may have just become a liability. The open 'intent' model of Android is really at the core of making something like this possible. In turn though does this also allow Facebook to take over "too many" aspects of Android and cut into Google's revenue streams as well? All things I'm still pondering. As an…

History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#76
post #5

My initial thoughts (without having a ton of time to really absorb this yet) is that Apple's closed operating system may have just become a liability. The open 'intent' model of Android is really at the core of making something like this possible. In turn though does this also allow Facebook to take over "too many" aspects of Android and cut into Google's revenue streams as well? All things I'm still pondering. As an…

No, Apple's closed platform is still an asset. Google's target market with Android never was you, the end user; it was handset manufacturers and carriers. Android is deliberately designed to be flexible enough to enable those parties to "customize the end-user experience", i.e., install crapware. Apple's closed platform, designed to be pleasant to the end user instead of making it easy for third parties to monetize the end user's eyeballs, will become even more distinguished and desirable.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#77
post #11

Setting aside the Launcher replacement, the most technically surprising aspect of this demo was the messaging app: it showed avatars and a messaging window hovering above the currently-focused app. As far as I know, this isn't possible on stock Android. You can make a non-fullscreen window, but you can't continue to interact with the layer behind it. This may be the motivation for the "set of OEM guidelines" Mark ver…

They also cribbed the way iOS does notifications and put it on Android. Instead of messages being in a drawer on the top, they show up on the home screen immediately.

The Facebook Android app feels a little too iOS flavored to me (the Action Bar sliding in its entirety to the right when you slide in that menu is wack), and Facebook Home looks a little bit iOS flavored as well.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#78

Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is. Apps are a way to gauge and guide intent. So if I want to send an email, I open an email app. If I want to check my schedule, I open the calendar app. These are established and…

> Facebook is betting that people don't want to interact with apps but rather with their friends, which is a bet they have to make because, well they're Facebook. This also sounds very good and "human" but I don't know how true to reality it is

Also, people won't mistake the Facebook app for their friends when ads start appearing.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#79
post #42

I only want this if Zuck's smiling face is at the bottom center of my phone, all the time. Still, does Facebook having more integration into every aspect of our digital experience really improve our quality of life? I feel like we are already well into an uncanny valley of Facebook saturation.

I guess you could change your facebook profile photo to be Mark's face.

To your question it comes down to whether or not you feel like Facebook improves our quality of life, and whether or not its effects are not already maximized. If you answer yes to both those questions, having Facebook more deeply integrated into your phone might help to maximize the benefits.

Also, if you spend 90% of your time on your phone on Facebook (I don't but I'm sure most geeks are not an accurate representation of the normal user) then you might prefer to have a deeply integrated Facebook phone with access to other apps/services on top of that.

Re: Facebook Announces “Home”, A Homescreen Replacement For Standard Android

#80
post #17

It will track all your data now, this app come installed from OEM's like HTC which would be hard to uninstall and would track all over information all the time. #privacyconcern

The promise with Ice-cream Sandwich was that you can disable any pre-installed app regardless of the skin. They would still take up storage space but for all intents and purposes, they don't exist. From an OEM's point of view, is there a way to circumvent this and still have access to Google Play Store?
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