Gadget Lab: All About Facebook Home

So big, big news from Facebook this week.

They announced Facebook Home for Android,

which is sort of like an appy, skinny thing.

Yes.

They also announced a new phone, this piece of hardware

it's going to be running it, the box.

But we can talk about that later.

First, why don't you take us through Facebook Home

for Android and what it is and what it does

and why you want it.

Yes, so Facebook Home, like you said,

it's kind of like an OS skin a bit.

It's not quite an operating system.

It's not quite an app.

But the biggest thing is that it takes control of

your lock screen and your home screen so the first

thing you get when you pick up your device is Facebook.

Your Facebook notifications are just right there.

So like when I hit the power button it, 'pop'

pops up and instead of seeing the clock and the weather

and all that, it just has

Yeah. What, my mom's photo

of her breakfast or something?

Yeah, your mom's photo of your breakfast.

You know, that person from high school that went on

some rants.

Oh. Well, you know.

All of that right there, it's fantastic.

(laughs)

You know, if you like Facebook it's fantastic.

Which is, you know, kind of the main thing.

It's Facebook all right there on your device.

So it's basically like the news feed,

that you can just sort of--

So, my impression of it when I saw it is that

it is sort of like a flip board style experience

for your news feed.

Yeah, yeah.

So it basically pulls in like updates and photos.

No video posts yet, right?

Correct.

Are they gonna do, what about Instagram?

Are they gonna do any of that integration?

Instagram, the hardware that HTC first, I believe.

It comes with Instagram pre-installed,

so easy integration between the two.

Okay, but the photos don't show up in the stream yet?

It's just Facebook Facebook stuff?

Yeah, Facebook posts, Facebook photos,

that sort of stuff.

Okay.

Yeah, and it also makes chat much easier.

So it's got this thing called chat heads,

which is kind of a ridiculous name.

It's a total trip.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's Facebook,

and then a chat head is like this circular like icon

this circular avatar that's taken from your profile

picture, which is a photo of your face,

but it's called a chat head.

Anyways, and so it's just you can start chatting with

people over Facebook message or through text messages

and you can chat with them without actually leaving

whatever app you're in at the time,

so it just kid of goes over the app experience.

I think it's pretty smart, 'cause it consolidates

all the different conversations that you're having.

All the different activities that one person is

participating in on your phone under one person's

profile instead of under a bunch of different apps.

Like right now your notifications will say you've got

a text message from this person.

This person uploaded a photo.

And this person posted a status update.

And you'll get those as separate notifications.

Now it'll just show Christina and then it will show

all of Christina's activity next to your chat head.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so Zuck was all talking about how

they're kind of taking the app out of the experience.

It's all about people now.

Yeah. Which goes along with that.

Yeah, we've heard that before.

Yes.

(laughs) There's also something

interesting that it consolidates messaging from

text messages and Facebook messages on your one,

sort of, roof in the chat experience.

Yes.

Which is much like we see with IOS.

I message, yeah.

And I message, so green and blue on the iPhone.

So it's cool.

It's a good trend, I think.

Yeah. It's easier

to manage conversations when you don't really care

where they're coming from.

Yeah. But who you're

actually talking to.

Speaking of IOS, as our Apple reporter,

do you foresee this Facebook Home arriving on an Apple

device anytime soon?

Zuck said that they have a good relationship with Apple.

You know, I don't see--

So do I.

(laughs)

I don't really see this happening,

at least, I mean, Facebook is already integrated

into the OS.

You know, you log in with your credentials so you can

share stuff to Facebook very easily.

I don't see Apple wanting Facebook to take control of

its operating system experience like this.

Yeah, 'cause I think that's the most important thing

about Home, is that it basically turns your phone into

a Facebook experience.

Yes. At the top level.

So everything you do, right when you turn your phone on,

and you start interacting with it, is a Facebook experience.

It's not an Android experience, which is kind of interesting

Yeah. 'cause, I mean,

this sort of, I think, opens a door

to other big brands being able to make a Facebook,

or sorry, an Android skin that is all about them.

Yes. You know.

Yeah.

Can't wait for my eBay phone.

Right, your eBay phone.

My Amazon phone.

Oh, I guess there've been rumors about that anyway.

I want an Etsy phone.

Well, you know it is pretty similar to what

the Kindle Fire does.

Definitely. And Android, you know.

So it's not entirely unique, but it's also very new

and interesting.

Yes, and it's not just so, I guess now we can switch

and talk hardware?

Yeah, so you'll be able to--

One more thing about Facebook Home is that you'll be

able to put it on your phone if you have

a Galaxy S Three, Galaxy S Four,

an HTC One.

HTC One X.

HTC One X, or is it One X Plus?

Yeah.

Or the new HTC First

on April 12th.

You can download it from the play store.

So since it's not actually a version of Android,

Facebook is going to be able to update this

as many times as they want like an app.

So that's awesome news because that is one of the big

pain points in Android is update times.

And they have committed to updating it once a month.

Yes, I believe every third Friday is what they said.

Yeah, okay, we'll see.

So what about the First?

Yes, so the First is basically,

it's not an early adapter phone.

It doesn't have really amazing specs.

It's just kind of, at least to me,

kind of a generic Android phone.

It's kind of mediocre. I'll back you up on that.

But it's, yeah.

But you know, it's, you know, just an easy portal

to your Facebook experience.

If it's your first smart phone,

it's just something very portable.

It'll work fine.

I have a feeling it's gonna sell kinda like hotcakes.

Really?

Well, it's a hundred bucks at AT&T.

Yes. Right, which is awesome,

because people are always like looking to save

$50 or $100 on a phone.

Even though I think that's--

personally I would never do that.

But there's a lot of people out there

who really wanna do that, right?

Also, it's very, very familiar.

So people who are maybe afraid about going with Android,

or they really like the iPhone,

this is just Facebook.

And they know Facebook, and they feel okay about

hanging out in Facebook right from the moment they

turn on their phone.

'Cause it's what they do anyway.

So I think for those people,

I mean, this is, it's like kind of a no-brainer.

Yeah, yeah, just live in your Facebook experience,

and now it's in your hand all the time instead of just,

you know, on the computer.

So that's also gonna be available in April.

Later, I think, is it the 12th also?

I believe so. Did they say?

Yeah. Okay.

And you can test it out if you have one of the supported

devices on the 12th in the Google Play Store.

And we're also gonna have a lot more coverage.

We're gonna have more videos from the event.

The announcement happened this week

at Facebook headquarters,

and we have reporters there,

which is why we're talking about it and not them,

'cause they're still down there.

And we're gonna be having

the devices in.

We're gonna review it, so you can read about that on Wired.

Also be sure not to miss Steven Levy's exclusive

interview with Mark Zuckerburg

that is up on Wired right now.

You can click on that and read it.

Yeah.

Anything else?

You know.

About the Home.

Not the Home.

It's, you know, I have privacy issues with this phone.

It's gonna know everything about you.

It's gonna know who you're talking with all the time,

who you're messaging,

where you are,

when you're awake,

when you're sleeping.

I'm personally like kind of wary about Facebook

knowing all of that details about my life.

Are you wary about Google or Apple knowing all

those details about your life?

Or Microsoft, because I would argue that your phone

already does know all those things.

I probably should be, yeah.

I mean I probably should be, but I don't know.

For some reason, I just don't--

I feel that I trust Apple a little bit more,

whether or not that's legitimate in any way, shape or form.

I, just, you know--

Well, who am I to say whether it is legitimate or not?

I think that's up to you to decide.

Yeah.

It's up to you to decide how much you wanna trust

these companies.

But it is very, very valid.

It's very valid.

Yeah.

Location data.

What brand of toothpaste you're using to brush your teeth.

You know, Android phones you could, you know,

just about any smart phone, if you want to,

you can turn on the camera and turn on the

microphone remotely and start listening in and

watching in people's lives.

Yeah, creepy.

I mean, you can go as deep as you want down

that rabbit hole.

Meanwhile, I'm just gonna be double-tapping on all your

pictures and liking all of them.

Excellent.

So, like us on Facebook.

We'll see you next week.