Facebook Home Finally Hits 1 Million Downloads

Facebook Home has finally hit 1 million downloads exactly one month after being released for Android, according to install numbers in the Google Play store.

At a press event on Thursday, Facebook's director of mobile engineering told reporters that Home had been downloaded "just about" 1 million times. On Sunday, Facebook Home was classified as having been installed 1 million - 5 million times in the Google Play Store. Facebook did not immediately respond to our request for comment about when exactly it passed the million mark.

While it's certainly a good milestone to reach, demand for Facebook Home appears to be dropping off. It took Facebook 10 days to hit 500,000 downloads and about twice that long to hit 1 million. Data from App Annie, which tracks app store rankings, shows that Facebook Home is currently below the top 100 Android apps in every country where it's available. In the US, it barely cracked the top 50 at its peak and has since dropped out of the top 300.

Many developers would be ecstatic to have their app downloaded 1 million times, but for Facebook, that represents a drop in the bucket considering it has more than 750 million active monthly mobile users. It also seems unlikely that all of those who have downloaded the app continue to have it installed on their phones, considering that Facebook Home has just a two-star rating in Google Play right now.

In another troubling sign for the product, AT&T and HTC recently dropped the price of the first phone that comes with Facebook Home baked into it — the HTC First — from $99 to $0.99 (with a two-year contract.)

Image courtesy of Facebook

Facebook Chat Heads: Now Rolling Out on iPhone

Facebook is updating its iOS apps to include the chat heads feature this week, with the necessary update hitting the app store Tuesday, the company has announced.
iPhone users who download the update will start to see chat heads pop up over the next couple of weeks, Facebook says.

Chat heads was unveiled as part of the Facebook Home announcement two weeks ago. Messages received on Facebook appear as bubbles with your friends' heads in them. You can drag the bubbles around the sides of your screen. Clicking on them reveals the message; dragging them to the bottom dismisses the chats altogether.

On Facebook Home, a new downloadable layer that sits on top of Android, chat heads appear on your home screen and lock screen. On the iPhone and iPad, they will only appear within the Facebook app.
Keith Schroepfer, CTO and VP of engineering told the D: Dive Into Mobile conference that the iOS app update featuring chat heads would be pushed out at some point this week. Facebook later clarified that the update would arrive Tuesday, but that chat heads would be a staggered rollout.

Do you have the chat heads update? Think it's a useful feature? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Facebook

Facebook Home Released For Android

Facebook has released Facebook Home, a new patch for Android devices which makes viewing messages and photos from Facebook easier by changing the device’s homepage into a Facebook cover feed.

When Facebook home was announced yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasised that the company’s intention was to build a mobile interface which put people first instead of apps. To that end, Facebook Home replaces an Android phone’s home page with information from the owner’s Facebook news feed, all of which can be clicked on and interacted with. At any point users can get to their apps by swiping up on their Facebook profile photo.

Facebook notifications will appear on the home screen beside a profile picture of the active party, Facebook promises on the announcement post that these notifications will be “bigger [and] bolder”. Notifications can be taken off screen with a simple drag.

Meanwhile, messages – both SMS and Facebook – will appear over apps as pop-ups in the corner of the screen. This feature, called Chat Heads, “will help improve engagement as it lets people jump in and out of conversations without ever having to leave your app”, according to the Facebook announcement post.

Home will be available in the US from the Google Play Store from April 12. Home works on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung GALAXY S III and Samsung GALAXY Note II. Home will work on the yet-to-be-released HTC One and Samsung GALAXY S4, and on more devices in the next few months.



What do you think of Facebook Home?