Disliked - Three old Facebook phones that are worth
forgetting
HTC ChaCha
Why it failed: People didn’t take too kindly to the ChaCha’s physical keyboard
that promised to offer quick shortcuts to your Facebook profile, but instead
made the Facebook integration a very clunky affair.
HTC
ChaCha
INQ Mobile Touch
INQ
Mobile Touch
Why it failed: Without a big name behind it, the INQ Cloud Touch soon fell into
obscurity. Its Facebook integration wasn’t bad, but the phone itself was
immensely underpowered compared to its competition.
HTC Salsa
HTC
Salsa
Why it failed: The Salsa was a big step up from the ChaCha, but the Facebook
integration was still slow to use and photos rendered horribly. The $450+ price
tag on launch didn’t help it out either.
Facebook Home
Key features that will define the new
Facebook Home user experience
Despite Home bringing an entirely different
look to Facebook, all the usual Facebook features are included. Posts are
listed in chronological order and update automatically when someone adds
something to their timeline and you’ll find each post can be interacted with by
leaving a comment or like. Open up the settings to change how often Home
updates itself, as it can drain a lot of battery fairly quickly, which no one
wants.
Interact
with posts by leaving a comment, or like on their picture or text-based status.
Some posts also include external links that you can press to be taken to a
website.
Your app drawer and various home screens
look totally different when using Facebook Home. All of the widgets you had
previously added will be removed and all the icons will have been bunched up to
fill the gaps. Open up the app drawer to see the new fade effect in action and
add any other app icons to your home screens, if you so wish. You’ll also find
direct links to your Facebook account at the top of your main home screen.
Widgets
cannot be added to your lock or home screen while Home is the default launcher
on your phone. Revert back to a different launcher if this is a problem.
Messaging has undergone a massive overhaul
within the Home launcher by adding the new Chat Heads feature. This creates a
small picture icon representing one of your Facebook friends from which you can
send messages to without needing to open up the Facebook home. With Chat Heads
you can also send messages to multiple friends at the same time and receive
notifications when messages are sent to you.
Chat
Heads is a new feature that takes inspiration from the likes of Google+ to
offer a great way of staying in contact with your Facebook friends without ever
needing to open up the app.
Android’s new Home?
Facebook Home is without doubt a product
aimed at keeping users of the social media site in contact with their profiles
and friends at all times, and in return Facebook can promote new adverts and
products directly to them. After installing Home you’ll be greeted with the
newest post created by one of your friends. Each post covers your entire screen
and whether it’s a picture, text or supported advert, Home does a good job at
making sure each post has a stylish, uniformed design.
Facebook
Home is without doubt a product aimed at keeping users of the social media site
in contact with their profiles and friends at all times
All posts can be interacted with, but the
process of scrolling through them and wanting to leave a comment is a painfully
slow experience at present. Despite Facebook claiming it has done extensive
testing on the Home service, the slow loading speeds will put off many users
and that’s an oversight.
Through the main screen of the Home
launcher you have access to your apps, photos, and of course, your Facebook
profile. Home doesn’t support widgets, so any that you’ve placed on your home
screens previously will have been removed, leaving odd-shaped gaps throughout.
You can move app icons to fill the gaps, but the lack of widget support isn’t
ideal.
The app drawer remains the same and the new
fade effect that has been included works a treat. What Facebook has also
introduced is a new messaging system that enables users to chat to specific
friends no matter what you’re currently doing on your device. Named Chat Heads,
the feature creates icons of chosen contacts from which you can place around
your phone and interact with whenever.
At the same time you can group your heads
together to instantly send a message to multiple friends. Despite Chat Heads
arguably being Home’s best feature, it doesn’t come ready to use and instead
users will need to venture to the Facebook Messenger app’s settings page to
activate it.
Home is a bold move by Facebook and the
ideas and concept behind it make for a sure-fire winner on paper. The
app/launcher itself isn’t as fluid as we would have liked, however. Clunky
loading times are the main problem here, with scrolling through posts a real
chore. The lack of widget support is also a concern and will no doubt put off
those who use widgets for their calendar, notes and other work-related apps.
Chat Heads is by far the best feature currently included in Home, but it’s so
well-hidden that many users won’t even realize it exists.
It’s early days for Home and if the team at
Facebook’s Californian headquarters can fix all the teething issues that have
arisen so far, then Home might just be a winner, but for now you should just
stick to the default Facebook application.
Will Facebook be
taking over your Android device?
Will
Facebook be taking over your Android device?
Home is only being released to a small
number of devices, at first, so take a look to see if you’re one of the lucky
few who will be able to get your hands on it.
