The HTC First is the first phone to feature Facebook Home
How much do you love Facebook? As we used to say when I was in elementary school, “do you LOVE IT love it? Or do you just love it?” Well, for those of you who LOVE IT love it, HTC has just announced the First, which is “the first and only smartphone built to feature Facebook Home.” The HTC First is also the first (and only) phone to come with Instagram pre-loaded, but that’s a little less exciting when you consider that it’s a free download that should only take seconds to do, anyway … unless they mean that it is integrated more fully that the typical app? In which case, rock on! But anyway.
The HTC First will come in black, white, red, or pale blue. The hardware is described as “thin, modern and seamless, with soft edges to draw your attention to the updates from friends and family on the 4.3-inch glass display.” The First will run Jellybean, Android 4.1, and it will have a dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor. The First will also have 3G/4G world and multilode LTE, so it should be pretty speedy no matter where you happen to be checking your Facebook feed from.
Why would you even want a Facebook-centric phone? Well, if you aren’t always on the social network, then you obviously wouldn’t. But for those of you who LOVE it love it, the HTC First experience is meant to make your friends the center of your phone experience by implementing the following:
- Cover feed: Which is a constant newsfeed about what’s going on with your friends … you wouldn’t want to miss anything, right?
- Notifications: Just what you’ve always wanted — notifications from apps and your friends, right there on your cover feed.
- Chat Heads: If you use Facebook as your primary means to communicate and chat with your friends.
Pre-orders for the HTC First will start today for $99.99 with a two-year commitment, and you can buy the HTC First exclusively in AT&T stores and online starting April 12. To pre-order, visit https://www.facebook.com/ATT.
*Disclosure: Kev and I were two of the optimistic simpletons who thought it would be fun to invest in Facebook stock on the day it first traded. We didn’t invest more than we could afford to lose, but it still smarted to watch the stock seemingly implode. A quick look at FB stock just now shows that it is having a good day, although still well below what we paid per share. Giddy Up, Facebook! =P
Like I’ve been saying in another post….meh. I assume there is SOMEONE who might want it but it’s kind of pointless when you can install the apps and a good chunk of the “Facebook Home Experience” on any Android device with Google Play. I just hope they don’t start killing off clients on iOS and other platforms. As for me….I’ll stick with what I got!
I see this like the Google phones – they are a ‘reference platform’. A way of showing off the functionality, without necessarily needing a home run in terms of sales …
… although HTC really needs a home run in terms of sales.