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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

#91

Post by ramy_d »

yalogin wrote: post #63
51Cards wrote: 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…

You seem to assume this is something people want. This is just an app trying to take over the whole OS experience. Being closed system is a good thing in this case as I don't want facebook to change my OS experience. I like apps to behave like apps. In fact I would go as far as saying that this is one way Android could become sucky over time - Too many apps trying to push for a new experience.

Isn't that the point though? What you don't want is exactly what facebook is trying to offer: A different home screen experience. How is having too many experiencial options a bad thing? Is curation the problem? Is the default home screen app so good it should not be touched?

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

#92

Post by jcomis »

mik3y wrote: post #62
drivingmenuts wrote: post #46

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.)

That's a really interesting point. I wonder where the permissions are covered in the preinstalled case. Some fine print somewhere I'm sure.

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

#93

Post by waterlesscloud »

isopod wrote: post #19

The giant gap between the beautiful photos of beautiful people doing enviable things in beautiful places used in demos such as these (and in Apple ones as well) and the mundane, poorly-focused, washed-out, ill-composed photos and meme reposts that are most likely to appear on your FB feed at any given moment always takes the shine off of products such as these for me, despite how much more useful or technologically a…

Finally! I have advantage for having a lot of friends who are filmmakers and photographers! Heh.

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

#94

Post by fizzbar »

philfreo wrote: post #75

So does Google like this or hate this?

Hates it with the fire of a thousand suns. All those ad impressions, all skipping right over the Google-supplied (and now invisible) OS...

Now spending every moment they have with their device basically entirely in Facebook.

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

#95

Post by loxs »

bitwize wrote: post #76
51Cards wrote: 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 t…

What you say is only an assumption. And if it's true, then I wonder how Android actually got the better user experience lately. I have access to all of iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S2 and a Galaxy Nexus. For me both androids are quite a lot better than the iPhone (disregarding the industrial design which is best on the iPhone). And I actually have a hard time deciding between Samsung's modded version and the original Android on the Nexus.

Note: Of course, I probably fit into the category of power users. Knowing which apps to disable, which to install, and which to configure (and how) is a good thing to know.

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

#96

Post by shagrath »

andrewmunn wrote: post #90
mik3y wrote: 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…

Actually chat heads works on stock Android! Not sure the exact wizardry that went into implementing it, but it's very impressive to use.

probably like explained here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8073803/android-multi-tou...

but imho, given they already downgraded the behavior in 4.0, this is really looking like a security hole that might be closed in a next Android release.

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

#97

Post by Shooti »

mik3y wrote: 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…

It's perfectly possible. They're doing it by setting the window type as TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT, and then switching it to TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY as needed.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowMa...

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

#99

Post by untog »

slouch wrote: post #88
pifflesnort wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call the inability for Facebook to usurp control over Apple's vertically integrated platform to be a market advantage, not a liability, as long as too many users don't start clamoring for a facebook-iphone. [edit] Remember browser toolbars? Now that Facebook is doing this, I expect this is just the beginning.

I don't think a launcher app like Facebook home can be associated with the Android home button automatically when it is installed, so the browser toolbar comparison isn't perfect.

I don't think a launcher app like Facebook home can be associated with the Android home button automatically

Automatically, no. But it will give you a prompt that will allow you to set the home button to go to Facebook Home.

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

#100

Post by ok_craig »

yalogin wrote: post #63
51Cards wrote: 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…

You seem to assume this is something people want. This is just an app trying to take over the whole OS experience. Being closed system is a good thing in this case as I don't want facebook to change my OS experience. I like apps to behave like apps. In fact I would go as far as saying that this is one way Android could become sucky over time - Too many apps trying to push for a new experience.

Being a closed system doesn't solve this problem, because the problem is already solved by simply choosing not to install the app. A closed system prevents you from making changes that you would actually like to, so it's strictly worse.
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