Gadgetory

Facebook home isn't an operating system but it does change your phone enough to make you relearn what you know about using Android it still needs some work but if you want to get facebook home a shot here are five tips to help you navigate this new interface the Facebook home comes a new set of gestures you'll use to navigate the system let's start at the main screen the cover feed when you wake your phone up notifications will be stacked here you can swipe away a notification like this or if you have a bunch tap and hold one then swipe them all away chat heads are controlled with similar gestures by now you probably know you can move them around the screen but to get rid of a chat head tap and hold then drag it down to the X you can also do this for multiple chat heads now in the cover feed you'll notice that photos are cropped you never see the entire picture as you browse around to see the full crop of a photo just tap and hold it to make life easier facebook home combines your texts and your facebook messages into one central place here's how it works grab your profile pic and swipe left to get to messenger to send a new facebook message or an SMS tap the plus button as i type someone's name i have the option here to send them a facebook message but if i want to send a text i'll choose their name in this list down here if you're texting Facebook home will use whatever photo you uploaded to their contact info on your phone in the chat head cover feat is great but when it's plastered all over your lockscreen it can be a little overkill thankfully there's an easy way to get your regular android lock screen back from home tap the Menu button hit settings and uncheck this option here exit that lock your phone and you're welcome you got your lock screen back in that same settings window there are a couple more things worth adjusting first know that you have the option here to show or hide the android status bar if you hide it you can still access it by swiping down from the top at any time but you won't always have a quick view of your phone status and the time most important though is this data use in image quality setting these options high medium and low let you control the image quality on the cover feed but it also determines the amount of data you use the high setting for example will pull more data refreshing the cover feed often and delivering high quality photos so if you're worried about saving on data choose the medium or low option the best thing about facebook home is that it's not your operating system since it's a launcher you can enable and disable it whenever you want back in settings turn off facebook home and confirm now when you hit your phone's HOME button you'll get this warning basically your phone is asking you if you want to use the Facebook home interface or the regular Android one tap launcher the Android one hit always and Facebook home will disappear when you're ready to enable it again just launch facebook home but choose home as the option when you get this message here the most important thing to remember about facebook home is that it's brand new so as time goes on expect to see updates to this interface and hopefully some extra options for customizing it until then hit me up on twitter with any of your questions and check out how to sina com for more tips like this we're cnet I'm Sharon Vaknin you