Facebook Announces “Home”, A Social Homescreen For Android [Updates]

Android users will soon have a new way to connect with their friends and family. Facebook announced on Thursday that it is releasing “Home”, a homescreen replacement app designed to provide Android users with a more social experience.

Home replaces the Android standard homescreen with a Facebook-inspired set of features, giving you access to photos, status updates, and notifications without having to open their Facebook app. Non-Facebook apps will be accessible within Home, and features such as Messenger can be used simultaneously with these apps.

Home’s shining star is the Cover Feed—a replacement for the general homescreen and your lock screen. As already mentioned, the standard features of Facebook will be accessible using the Cover Feed as soon as you turn on your phone, without even having to unlock it.

Home will launch in the US on April 12 for devices running Android 4.0 and up. The international version of the app will be released at an unspecified time. AT&T’s HTC First is set to come with Home pre-installed (also available April 12), and tablets are expected to receive the Home app within the next few months.

In case you were wondering, Facebook has offered some reasoning for the creation of Home. According to the social network, we use our phones to access Facebook on a near-constant basis anyway, so why not make the device itself more socially-oriented than task-oriented?

Should phones really be more socially oriented? Or is Facebook going too far?

Sources: Facebook via TechCrunch

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