Technology / Mobile phone
Facebook phone to be launches tomorrow
03 Apr 2013 at 02:05hrs | Views
The giant online social network Facebook is set to launch the new "Facebook phone" tomorrow April 4.
The press event will be held at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California - revealed after invitations were sent to local media inviting them to "come see our new home on Android".
The company has been working with HTC, the world's third-largest maker of smartphones, for more than a year to make an Android-based phone that has Facebook's social networking services at its core.
"I think people want it [the Facebook phone] to be very integrated into all of the different devices that they have and that's what we're going to focus on," Zuckerberg told analysts in January. "So, rather than just building an app that's a version of the functionality that you have today, I think making it so that we can just 'do' - going deeper and deeper, I think, is going to be a big focus for us."
In a reported leak, website Android Police said that users had to sign in to Facebook to be able to use the phone - enabling the social media company to garner even more information about its users. It will have one gigabyte of memory, a 720p high-definition, 4.3-inch screen and a dual core microprocessor made by Qualcomm.
"The Facebook Phone looks to be a mostly stock, mid-range Sense 4.5 phone that was attacked by a mutant Facebook app. Everything seems to be focused on the Facebook app - they haven't made their own Android Skin, or anything like that. Sadly, we can't get too many more details, because just about everything requires that you have special access to Facebook," concluded Android Police.
The move is part of a long-held bid to make up for the company's lack of presence - at least from a revenue generating point of view - in mobile. The company generated about 23 per cent of its advertising revenue in the fourth-quarter of 2012 from mobile - about $366m (£242.1m) out of $1.59bn (£1.05m) in total revenue.
According to Facebook, that was up from 14 per cent, quarter-on-quarter. Full year total revenues weighed in at $5.09bn (£3.37bn).
Amazon is also expected to weigh in with an entry into the smartphone market this year, especially following the appointment of former Windows Phone executive Charles Kindel to lead a "secret mobility project" at the company.
The press event will be held at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California - revealed after invitations were sent to local media inviting them to "come see our new home on Android".
The company has been working with HTC, the world's third-largest maker of smartphones, for more than a year to make an Android-based phone that has Facebook's social networking services at its core.
"I think people want it [the Facebook phone] to be very integrated into all of the different devices that they have and that's what we're going to focus on," Zuckerberg told analysts in January. "So, rather than just building an app that's a version of the functionality that you have today, I think making it so that we can just 'do' - going deeper and deeper, I think, is going to be a big focus for us."
"The Facebook Phone looks to be a mostly stock, mid-range Sense 4.5 phone that was attacked by a mutant Facebook app. Everything seems to be focused on the Facebook app - they haven't made their own Android Skin, or anything like that. Sadly, we can't get too many more details, because just about everything requires that you have special access to Facebook," concluded Android Police.
The move is part of a long-held bid to make up for the company's lack of presence - at least from a revenue generating point of view - in mobile. The company generated about 23 per cent of its advertising revenue in the fourth-quarter of 2012 from mobile - about $366m (£242.1m) out of $1.59bn (£1.05m) in total revenue.
According to Facebook, that was up from 14 per cent, quarter-on-quarter. Full year total revenues weighed in at $5.09bn (£3.37bn).
Amazon is also expected to weigh in with an entry into the smartphone market this year, especially following the appointment of former Windows Phone executive Charles Kindel to lead a "secret mobility project" at the company.
Source - Computing.co.uk
