[video=youtube;0HTl8zbwyFo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HTl8zbwyFo[/video]
Today, April 12[SUP]th[/SUP], 2013, Facebook Home was released into the play store for public use on a select few devices. However, many people are skeptical are wondering if this is going to be a worthwhile app to use to replace their home screen, and I’ll let you know right now.
The Good
- Interface: When scrolling through the pages and different pictures, the experience you get while using it is very good. If you’re looking for buttery smooth performance, this may be for you
- Chat Heads: Chat Heads are little bubbles that pop up whenever you receive a message (or SMS assuming you set it up in settings) through your Messenger app. You can move it all around your screen and they pop up no matter what screen you’re in. You can stack your messages together, or throw them all away. As well when you do click on the chat head, it comes up in a nice little pop up so you don’t have to leave the app you’re in. And of course, if you’re into emojis, facebook has most of them and they will pop up on your friends iPhone or your normal GO SMS/SMS app that also has the emoji codec.
The Bad
- No Dedicated Camera Button: You would think with Facebook relying very heavily on pictures it’d have a dedicated camera button in the corner of the screen or something, but no. You actually have to swipe up, go into apps, swipe right, then scroll and find the camera button and move it into your shortcuts. Kind of an annoying and unnecessary hassle.
- Better Search: So far, Facebook Home makes you have to keep scrolling and scrolling an endless amount of times until you may find content you are actually interested in. To find your friends you must go into the actually Facebook app itself to view specific people if you can find them on Facebook Home.
- More Features: I’m not too huge of a Facebook user. I reply more on Twitter, Google +, and Instagram. While the first two social networks are understandable not to have in Facebook Home, it’d be nice (since Facebook bought out Instagram) if you could make Facebook Home show your Instagram feed instead of your Facebook feed after going into the settings.
- Support: If you watched the event, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned he wanted this to be something everyone, on any phone, can use. But at the moment it’s only supported on the Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S3, HTC One, One X, or One X +.
Final Verdict
While Facebook Home does a couple things right, it really needs to work on things still. At the moment, it’s more a beta than anything else. Hopefully in the coming months when Facebook does its scheduled updates, it’ll add more functionality and phone support so more people can actually use it. If you're really big on Facebook this is gonna be fore you. If you use Facebook to connect with a few people and the rest is a bunch of people you don't really care about then at the moment I'd probably steer towards sticking stock or using something like Nova or Action launcher Pro.
