Facebook Home is here, and although it’s not tied to its flagship hardware, the list of phones that officially support it is kind of underwhelming. If the phone you have isn’t listed, have no fear: you can try out Facebook Home too, and the workaround is pretty easy. More »
Despite an early leak on Monday, once again the internet lit-up with chatter about the release of Facebook Home in the Google Play store. All good and well if you find yourself in the right place with the right phone, but what about everyone else? Unsurprisingly, the digital door staff (read, Facebook’s hardware restrictions) have already been dispatched, meaning almost any Android device can download and install the social software. We can thank Paul O’Brien at MoDaCo for doing the honors, and for those interested, the process is pretty simple. If your issue is location (rather than device) you’ll need the latest version of Facebook’s regular and Messenger apps first. Once you do, just download the APK, activate it, and you’re good. If hardware is the barrier, then you’ll need to get the patched versions of Facebook, Messenger and Home (via the source). Early reports suggest that most features operate just fine, but that sending SMS from Messenger can sometimes stop working. If that’s a deal-breaker, you’ll have to keep an eye out for updates. If it’s not, then tap the source up for the full lowdown. If you do, head back here and let us know how you got on.
Update: We’ve tweaked the headline to more clearly reflect that this isn’t officially from Facebook.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Facebook
Via: TechCrunch
Source: MoDaCo
In case you happened to miss the furor earlier today (or yesterday, depending on your timezone), Facebook officially pushed its Facebook Home launcher into the Google Play Store for owners of a select few devices to muck around with. Early impressions seem to run the gamut, but unless you had the right hardware you were plumb out of luck if you wanted to take Home for a spin.
Well, let me rephrase that: you were plumb out of luck. MoDaCo founder Paul O’Brien worked up a dead-simple way to get Facebook Home up and running on just about any Android device. Long story short, he patched a version of the Home app to keep it from figuring out what device you’ve just loaded it onto and showing you the customary it’s-not-your-turn screen.
All you really need to do is pop into your Android device’s settings and make sure it’s set to install applications from unknown sources (it’s in the “Security” section). From there, you just have to download and install his patched versions of the Facebook Home app, as well as his patched Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps. Already have those latter two apps installed? You’ll have to uninstall both of them and load up O’Brien’s cooked versions in order for Home to work properly.
That could pose an issue for some of the more curious among you — certain devices that have the Facebook app baked into it by the manufacturer (like the HTC One, for example) won’t play nice with this version of the Home app unless you root the device and remove the Facebook app yourself. Thankfully, rooting most popular devices is way easier than it used to be, but be sure to do your homework if you think you may take the plunge.
To test out O’Brien’s handiwork, I tried installing Facebook Home on two devices that it wasn’t supposed to wind up on yet: Motorola’s Droid RAZR HD and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. After an installation process that was completed in under two minutes for each device, Facebook Home was working mostly the way it should — it took a moment for messages to come through, but Facebook’s novel chatheads appeared on both devices, and I was easily able to see what my friends were doing on a Friday night while I stayed home to play with phones. That said, not every one of my friends’ news feed updates wound up in Home’s swipe-able stream, but that seems to be the case even if you’re running Home on supported hardware.
The only major missing feature I noticed was that neither device would let me send SMS messages from the Messenger app, an omission that seemed to plague most people that tried O’Brien’s builds. Granted, that means you don’t get the exact Home experience, but all things considered this’ll provide you a solid peek before Facebook officially brings Home to all the other Android devices of the world. As for whether or not you’ll find it to be worth keeping — well, that’s another story altogether.
Like the wonderful Libby Cooper before her, this girl is just beyond awesome. She remixes her Facebook Cover Photo so that her profile picture pops up seamlessly in movie sequences, TV shows and video games. It’s perfect. More »
This week on the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast we talk about the launch of Facebook Fone and my own horrible attempts at becoming a bitcoin billionaire.
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Intro Music by Rick Barr.
If you’re planning on adding Facebook Home to your device this weekend, you might want to consider the positives and negatives of doing such a thing. If you’ve got an HTC First, you’ll likely have purchased the device because you want Facebook on your device, and there’s really not a whole lot you need to consider. If you’re a Facebook user and have an Android device, you’ve got what might be a rather easy decision ahead of you.
With the launch of Facebook Home you’ve got the ability to use advanced features (new this week) for Facebook without adding the Home launcher to your Android device. You’ve got three applications in the mix now where before you had two:
• Facebook for Android
• Facebook Messenger
• Facebook Home
The first two have received updates today along with the update for Facebook Home which include connections to Home, but do not require Home to work. If you want to avoid Home entirely, you’re free to do so. With Facebook Messenger you get what Facebook calls “Chat Heads”, a rather awesome feature that you can learn all about in our Chat Heads First! post from earlier today. With Chat Heads you’ve got Facebook’s messenger service with you at all times – those heads can pop up anywhere!
Facebook for Android stays largely the same if you don’t download Facebook Messenger or Facebook Home. In fact you’ve got basically an app with no real surface updates at all if you don’t download Messenger or Home – how about that? If you do download Home, though, you’re in for a real trip.
When you first open Home, you’ll be treated with a full-screen presentation of one of your friends’ recent status updates with a photo that will be oversized enough to fit your display. This status will be accompanied by a short blurb – sometimes the full text, sometimes just a clip, and you’ll see some recent activity from your “updates” in the form of small bars with attached Facebook “Heads”.
These Heads will continue to pop up throughout your experience with Facebook at this point. They’re just your regular Facebook profile photo living in a sphere rather than a square, and outside of Chat Heads, they’re just plain old Heads. You’ll find the SlashGear “head” to be more of a “Gear”, as it were.
You can cycle through statuses from here, pretty pictures included if you have friends that post appropriately colorful bits and pieces. Whichever status you leave up, that’s the one that sticks as your “wallpaper” as you cycle through apps if you do choose to enter any app from this point onward.
Your apps are all still accessible, and as our Facebook Home Review shows, you’ve got a really basic experience waiting for you. This Facebook Home environment makes for a real Facebook Front and Center situation, that’s for sure.
The lockscreen isn’t actually a lockscreen in Facebook Home, it’s called “Cover Feed.” With Cover Feed as your first screen, you’ll often not really want to go far beyond – or if you do, it’s through Facebook that you’ll be doing it. Facebook Home covers you in a solid blue aura of Facebook. I nearly typed “of social networking”, but with Facebook Home, you don’t get your other social networking (or any other) updates on the Cover Feed, you only get updates from Facebook.
Above: Facebook’s own camera interface makes its mark as your primary go-to shooter as well.
The story is a bit different when you get a Facebook Phone like the HTC First. Have a peek at our HTC First review to see how different the experience is – it starts with apps other than Facebook being able to give you notifications in-launcher. That can be quite an important decision point for you if you’re planning on working with Facebook Home one way or the other.
Above: Your normal Android settings are available if you know where to find them. On the Galaxy S III you can simply pull your notifications bar down and hit the gear!
You can download Facebook Home right this minute from the Google Play app store for free and load it for a limited number of devices. After today there will be updates every once in a while adding smartphones to the fold – for now, it’s quite obvious that AT&T is being favored for the hero line-up. Have a peek at which devices can work with Facebook Home and let us know what you think!
BONUS: What you’re seeing above is the Samsung Galaxy S III running the Quadrant benchmark test with Facebook Home running, then without Facebook Home installed at all. The differences can be seen two ways – extremely minor, or just different enough to sway you one way or the other. Consider your options!
Facebook Home vs Homeless: should you go blue for Android? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
I’m sorry, I don’t care what Zuck or Facebook says. Chatheads, the best aspect of Facebook Home, is one word. Just like “Facebook.” And all the other compound words that end with “head,” most of which are filthy and profane. …
Today is the day Facebook Home is released for Android devices, and though it may seem possible to download the app for your smartphone or tablet, it won’t necessarily be in full working order this afternoon. Why would that be – you might ask? Because Facebook’s launch of Facebook Home is limited to just five devices – and one of them was just released to the market today.
With the HTC First you’ll have the full Facebook Home experience from top to bottom – even when you download the Facebook Home app and load it to your device that’s not an HTC First, you’ll still not have full notifications for apps in your News Feed. Other than that, it’s basically the same experience. And what about your Motorola DROID RAZR HD? You’re out of luck – for now, anyway.
The Facebook Home app is working today for four devices other than the HTC First:
• Samsung Galaxy S III
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
• HTC One X
• HTC One X+
Why these four devices? The first two devices are some of the best-selling smartphones in the past year. The HTC One X and the HTC One X+ are also some of the highest-powered smartphones on the market – and they’re all four carried by AT&T along with the HTC First. Sound like a deal behind the scenes to you?
UPDATE: According to Facebook, the following devices will be available for Facebook Home compatibility very soon! Can’t wait!
• Samsung GALAXY S4 (Future)
• HTC One (Future)
If you’re hankering for a partial Facebook Home experience before Facebook updates their development to handle more than just the five (make that seven) devices above, you’ll want to update your regular Facebook app and download Facebook Messenger. With Facebook Messenger you’ll get what’s easily the best part of the Facebook Home experience without needing the Facebook Home launcher: Chat Heads. Hear all about it in our Chat Heads post from earlier today!
Have a peek below at some additional Facebook Home insight as well – don’t forget to check out the HTC First review we’ve got along with our full Facebook Home review too!
PSA: Why doesn’t Facebook Home work on my smartphone? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
If you went out and purchased the HTC First because you thought you’d be the first and only person to have Facebook Home for a couple of weeks or months, we hate to burst your bubble but it looks as though Facebook not only released Facebook Home’s Chat Heads feature in its Facebook Messenger app for Android, but they have also just released Facebook Home entirely for some select Android devices.
The devices that currently can install Facebook Home are the HTC One X, HTC One X+, the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are said to support Facebook Home in the future, but for you other Android users, you’ll need to be patient until it’s available on your device of choice. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Tipped To Sell 1 Million Galaxy Mega 5.8 Devices Monthly , Motorola X Release Reportedly Pushed Back Till August, 
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