Few days back the whole internet was shaking with the news of Facebook OS coming us, but it turned out a few days back that the whole thing was just a rumor. It actually turned out to be a software that takes up the whole screen of android powered Smartphones. Although the only support it saw, came from a new phone by HTC Corp. to be sold through AT&T Inc. in the US.
What was not expected was that experts will take this as a homepage invasion. Its a very much known fact that these two are B and are always competing, and thus it means that Facebook has taken advantage of the OS made by Google. For those who have no idea about what this app does, this app is named facebook home. The app will show all the status updates, notifications, messages etc and all that would be available for the users on the home screen itself. This would make facebook even a more embedded part of our lives. The user won't even need to open the facebook app for any purpose.
Currently, the company has not made any comments that are of much importance. But still it looks like Facebook has taken a benifit out of this operating system and its open policies. Google might have given out this operating system to other companies with the thought that they would result in users being more drawn towards services that Google has to provide. Apart from that the goal was to get income from apps and ads. One can say that they have been successful, but upto a limited extent. One can estimate how much market facebook has taken under itself, but the fact that the whole internet was fired up with the news of Facebook OS. This was not possible for launch of any other Operating systems.
Since the current market of Google has spread throughout the whole world, one can say that soon this new app will be there on every smartphone running on Android. This app will be available for everyone from 12th of April, till then its being launched with the upcoming phones from HTC Corp. Thus the divertion of traffic from Google's own ads to Facebook's ads. The same cannot be said for other like iPhone. The app will not be available on iPhone untill they discuss all the terms and conditions with Apple Inc.
Google made a statement defending the open source policies -
"This latest device demonstrates the openness and flexibility that has made Android so popular."
The launch event was on thursday, where there were many questions asked. Some even asked what if Google changes its strategy of allowing everything with its OS, in reply to which Mark said that its quite unlikely for Google Inc. to suddenly change all its policies. Also its not the first time anything like this has happened. Remember the Kindle fire tablets from Amazon, it reached to a complete new level. With the kindle fire, all the apps of Google have been removed and are replaced with Amazon apps equivalent to them. Here its better because at least phones with Facebook home can have all the apps of Google.
Lets listen to Mark Zuckerberg about this topic -
"I think this is really good for Android," Zuckerberg told the audience at the launch event in Menlo Park, Calif. Developers do their best work on the iPhone first, but with Home, Facebook is putting Android first. If consumers want the Facebook Home experience, they'll have to get an Android phone."
Mark Zuckerberg
Now the data will be collected after release of this app, and that would tell us the real story. Till then what do you have to say? Share with us here or at www.facebook.com/digitfreak
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