How long will it take Facebook Home to hit 1bn downloads? 76 years Facebook Home has been downloaded 500,000 times from Google's Play store since it was released by the free content ad network earlier this month. If the app was to continue to be downloaded at that pace then it would roughly take 76 Gregorian years for Facebook to have 1 billion Android users running the software, which skins …
No thanks. A Facebook app? Maybe, if it offers a better experience than mobile.facebook.com (which, currently, it really doesn't in my opinion), but letting Facebook take over my home screen? No, that is never, ever going to happen.
As for iOS, wouldn't a home screen replacement be one of the things automatically denied in Apple's walled garden according to their developer rules?
If I was a big FB user - it was the main thing I did on my phone - I'd probably welcome better integration.
As for iOS, you are right BUT sometimes big players get special rules/exceptions, for instance WP has built-in Twitter/FB/etc functionality (which you can ignore). It is unlikely IMO though.
Of course you won't get Home on the iPhone. There is only room for one overlord of your phone (and, no, one of the options isn't you). If Apple have already gone to the trouble of hooking you, they are hardly likely to hand the fishing rod over for Facebook to reel you in. These companies wish to embed themselves on your devices and monopolise any money that flows within its reach. Sharing is not part of the plan.
IMHO, it SHOULD take infinitely long for FBH to reach any downloads - I would hope people are smarter than that.
Unfortunately, the old adage about "you will never go broke underestimating human stupidity" is true, and it FBH will likely reach that total long before the estimated time.
I would HOPE people are smarter, but I KNOW they are not.
wonder how many Linux users we have based on the number of Linux downloads
You and me both. I know that I download Linux about 3-4 times a year (sometimes to set up a new box, but more often to play with X-distro that someone said they liked for a couple hours before deciding I still like my distro of choice better).
Hmmmm. Apple got a bunch of people to shift from slide-to-unlock due to lawyers, I believe one of the routes gone down was that you had a 'ball' on your lock screen that you dropped into a hole for the app you wanted the phone to launch into. With goatse as the lock image, I'd hate to think what gets launched when you drop it there...
FB is compatible with playing outside and using emails but it would be a pretty crap parent who deliberately tried to stop their kid being up to speed with this decade's technology. Just because you don't get it... your parents probably thought having a personal stereo was equally terrible.
Sooo, wrong. A good parent will keep a young person off FB. The anonymous teasing, put-downs and outright bullying are to ever present. Seen it too many times. My only slightly chubby 11 year old hears it too much in person. I'm not opening her up to that pain on that horrible site.
I'm not sure this is really news.
Sure, downloads are low but I really doubt they were hoping millions of people would be flocking in. they've released it this way in addition to it's primary purpose - coming bundled on "facebook" branded phones. Users consciously downloading, installing and using it aren't what they are after I suspect. It's not for me and you, It's for the 8.99-12.99 a month contract phone demographic. Which is mainly those 14-18 years of age.
I think the number of downloads ia more than likely due to the fact that it was presented as just another update and as such many people will have simply updated it. It wasn't really obvious that it was really a completely different app to the one being replaced.
Luckily I knew all about it so just uninstalled the app completely and have reverted to using Friendcaster.
I control my use of facebook not the other way round.
And before all you commentards start telling me how cool you are because you don'ty use FB at all please read the following...
I don't give a fuck about wether you do or don't. FB is the best way to achieve the thing I use it for.
I tried it just to see what it actually ran like and how polished the finished product was.
What I found was that the product wasn't too bad for what its designed for but do you really want your background to be your friends posts? Do you want random photos with inspiration text that has been shared thousands of times to be shown as you unlock your phone, or really bad photos taken in bad lighting stretched to fill the screen from your friends nights out.
As it is easy enough to switch off, it is worth trying. I did and ended up wondering what all the fuss is about. The home screen is nice, but nothing IMHO that couldn't have been achieved with a better widget (i.e. one designed to take up a whole screen). Also, it's buggy. One of my screens as a set of folders to short cuts (with names like Travel, News, Office and so on). Since the Facebook launcher doesn't seem to support folders, what I found was my short cuts were all strewn, seemingly at random across multiple screens. That didn't cut the best impression.
Oh, and I didn't see how the product puts people at the centre of everything. If you want to make a call or send a text message, its back to the TouchWiz applications and address book.
If it's anything like the quality of the iOS app - flakey, prone to crashing, takes ages to update, varies what it shows you from one hour to the next, hides some stuff entirely apparently at random and so on - then "mixed reviews" must mena there was actually a good one in there somewhere.
Hard to believe, I know.
[citation needed]
And an accurate one at that, not FB's skewed statistics.
Oh, and for what it is worth, note the "on all devices". Well, I have logged in to FB on three phones (mobile website, never ever plan to touch the app on principle of it being uninstallable bloatware) and a computer. Does this count as one user or four? Hmmm...
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