Gadgetory

so how is the Facebook experience different on a phone that comes pre-installed with Facebook home I'm Taylor Martin this is pocket now and this is facebook on the HTC first the HTC first announced a few weeks back at the facebook event in california officially went on sale friday April twelfth the device although not marketed officially as a facebook phone so to speak is the first to come with facebook home pre-installed when you power the device up for the very first time it appears no different than any other Android smartphone but the typical Android setup process is interrupted by a prompt to login to your Facebook account and once the initial setup is done you are brought to your home screen a gorgeous display of your facebook news feed and all of your friends recent activity scrolling to the right reveals friends updates one at a time with a related image as the background for example if a friend shares an image to facebook that image becomes a temporary wallpaper for your home screen if a friend shares a link or simply text with no image their cover photo becomes the background visually facebook home is gorgeous and it has a way of naturally boosting your level of facebook interaction if you like a status or photo simply double tap the home screen and a large thumbs up logo appears commenting is only a tap away as are your notifications tap in the lower right corner on the status activity or in the lower left corner on the comment logo to leave a comment tap on a blank space on the home screen and your most recent notifications will appear bringing up your notifications also reveals your own profile image which can be dragged upwards to open the app drawer to the left to quickly open messenger or to the right to open the most recent application facebook was sure to make every interaction super simple and fun everything is just a tap or slide away the application drawer is quite simple there are two states a full app drawer and your favorite applications the user is able to arrange and set up the favorites list as they please and the app drawer itself lies to the left displaying all the installed applications above the user defined app drawer sits three quick compose Facebook shortcuts status photo or check in the other new addition to Facebook's growing list of mobile services is chat heads built into the facebook Messenger app chat heads or pop-up conversations that freely float atop the interface in any application a new Facebook message comes in and the cinders face appears in a bubble on your phone's display tap the chat head and the entire conversation loads wherein you can reply and carry on a conversation without ever having to leave the application you were originally in tap the head again to minimize the conversation and if the chat head gets in your way simply flick it to the other side of the display to close the conversation flick the head towards the bottom of the screen where the ominous x button will pull it in and disappear if you close a chat head by accident don't worry you can reopen an old conversation by opening facebook Messenger long pressing the conversation and selecting pop-out chat head you can have up to five chat heads open at once and minimizing them will collapse all of them on top of one another it's a very quick and simple solution for carrying on a conversation while doing other things from your phone and it's certainly quicker and less arduous than switching back and forth between apps officially Facebook home is available for download for only six devices the HTC One the One X the One X plus a samsung galaxy s3 galaxy note 2 and the galaxy s4 over the weekend however our own Tony reported a hack by modaco that enables Facebook home to be installed on virtually any device in any region so how is the software on the HTC first any different from a device that doesn't come pre-installed with Facebook home the differences are quite small the HTC first is only slightly more integrated with the Android experience for example the notification shade is mirrored on the notification view of facebook home meaning all of your notifications will appear on your home screen with the HTC first on say the galaxy s3 or HTC One only facebook notifications appear on Facebook home another minor difference is the addition of a google search bar in the application drawer on the HTC first other devices do not have this search bar in the app drawer if you're an avid Facebook user there is little to complain about with Facebook home there's hardly a better way to enjoy your friend statuses but even if you're not a fan of Facebook it's hard to deny that Facebook home is a bold move on the company's part one that we wouldn't mind seeing other services apps make that's all for now and if you like the video be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel and stay tuned for more HTC first coverage there's plenty more including a full review and comparison videos throughout the next week I'm Taylor Martin and I will see you next time