One of the most exciting features of Facebook Home, the social network's new Android launcher set to hit the Google Play Store later today, is the new 'Chat Heads' feature, which allows all SMS and Facebook messages to manifest themselves from within a single interface. The main idea behind it, of course, is to lessen the need for you to keep flitting between Facebook Messenger and your native SMS app, and although Home is itself limited currently in how many devices it will cater to, Chat Heads has just arrived to the standalone Facebook Messenger app by means of an update. Details next.
Whenever a new piece of software is due to hit the market, it invariably leaks a great deal earlier than anticipated. History has repeated itself on some of the social network’s just-announced Facebook Home for Android software, with MoDaCo managing to get its hands on a pre-release version. The Google-branded Nexus 4 is said to be one of a handful of devices compatible with this pre-release version of the launcher, which will release officially for five handsets this coming Friday, and although one or two of the features don't appear to be working properly, it's a very nice find.
As anticipated, Mark Zuckerberg has taken to the stage at Facebook’s Palo Alto HQ to announce Home, which touts deep integration with the Android infrastructure in order to revolutionize the way we interact with Facebook on our mobile devices. The social network’s CEO describes it as “a new category of experiences” which “sets the tone” for Facebook on Android. More details can be found right after the jump.
We're just a few moments away from discovering exactly what Facebook's new home on Android actually entails, and if you want to watch a live stream of the event based at the social network's California headquarters, we've got an embedded link coming up after the break as well as a quick run through of what we expect from the event itself.
Earlier on, sources revealed that Facebook's big revelation at Facebook Home on April 4th would entail an all-new operating system from the social outfit, based on Android. Much in the way Amazon offers its own, custom OS atop Google's open-source ecosystem, Zuck is said to be about to reveal a similar offering tailored to the world's largest social network, and now, AndroidPolice has gotten its hands on a system software dump of the very first device said to carry the new software.
We told you just recently about the invites that Facebook has sent out, asking the press to join Mark Zuckerberg and co at the company's Menlo Park HQ. Whilst the invite makes mention of a new home on Android, the context of such a phrase was rather cryptic, leaving us all to wonder just what Facebook has up its sleeve. Now, thanks to claims by a fellow blog, it seems we may have some answers.
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