Long back a rumor was in market that social network giant Facebook will jump into mobile phone industry. However that time spokesperson from Facebook decline the existence of any such phone. Many thinks have changed in these time. We have got Android an highly customizable and stable Operating System for mobile.
HTC is a major smartphone manufacturer, used to produce primarily Windows Mobile phones, have changed their focus to Android devices. They manufacture the Google Nexus One and EVO 4G in addition to many other devices. Now HTC is known for modifying Android on its phones with its HTC Sense interface.
At this point the recent 'news' that we can't ignore as rumor that Facebook has tapped Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC to build a smartphone that has the social network integrated at the core of its being. Notable blog AllThingsD has reported that the new Facebook - HTC phone is code-named "Buffy".
The phone as mentioned in AllThingsD, is planned to run on a modified version of Android that Facebook has tweaked heavily to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications. Detailed specifications are not yet available. It will hit the market potentially in next 12 to 18 months.
Facebook representative wouldn't confirm or deny the phone. Instead, he repeated the company's common statement on the mobile strategy, where every device was better if it was "deeply social." Facebook works with carriers, hardware an OS designers, and individual app makers, it said, not addressing the question.
Stupid Common Man's view
Facebook has around 350 million active mobile users, and relationships with 475 global mobile operators. The number of mobile users are increasing everyday so as the smart phone market. At this point mobile is critical to Facebook's future. And moving directly into the phone business, may well be the natural choice for the company.
Most of the mobile devise manufacturer including iPhone and iPad now considering the power of social network, has started including Facebook in their design. However the till now the integration is at the level of just an app or if high-end a prominent dedicated Facebook button. Now the Facebook app only enable people Facebook login, view their friends' feeds and upload their own photos and status message. In other cases, Facebook has worked to take things a step further, allowing users to upload photos directly from the picture-taking app or to integrate Facebook contacts with the phone's address book. people can visit www.facebook.com and access Facebook log in from Facebook login page in their mobile web browser.
As Android market is gaining its strength and Google is increasingly being a direct competitor, as it is working to promote and integrate its own social network, Google+ across all its products. Facebook to hold its ground and tap its existing users in mobile market may come with a branded phone of its own. Apparently this 'rumor' seems a valid news to us.
Photo courtesy: Sigalon's Android Soup
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