Well, Facebook Home is now officially available for download in the play store. Even though I am an unashamed fan of stock android I was very curious to try out the new launcher, as fresh perspectives are always refreshing. Unfortunately as of this writing only four currently available phones can officially access this new feature, the HTC One X, One X +, the Galaxy S3 and the Note 2. (The galaxy S4, HTC One and HTC First will all have access when they finally release.)
As a Nexus 4 owner I was left in the shade… for all of about 12 hours before Paul O’Brian of MoDaCo patched the app for use on all devices. He removed the device check feature and boom, Facebook Home was available for all. You need to download the patched Facebook app, messaging app and the actual Home application itself. Then allow third-party installs in your security settings, install the APK files and you should be good to go. It only takes a minute to do and I definitely recommend you give it a shot, if only for the novelty of it.
Facebook as a whole has run its course for me and many others. While their Facebook application has improved it still is not overly enjoyable to use and lags behind some other networks excellent designs. I can’t get rid of it simply because it is an excellent way to stay in touch with a few old friends. So I was hoping that Facebook Home would change some of that. The idea of seeing updates and photo’s sounds kind of cool and it actually was for about 20 minutes. I saw some funny photos a couple of cats worked their way onto my homescreen. I actually was enjoying it! Then the other side of Facebook popped up. A few delightfully racist statuses started it all off, several, shall we say, interestingly angled selfies wormed their way in. It would be rather difficult to explain who the swimsuit wearing lad or lady in question was to one’s significant other.
On the positive side, the whole experience was rather smooth, chatheads were interesting and as mentioned above everyone should take a look at the new service. It is vastly different from stock android or any other skin I’ve seen, and Facebook deserves credit for trying something new like this. Will you be trying out facebook home? Let us know in the comments below.