Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the official Facebook phone – the HTC First. The HTC First will come in red, light blue, white, and black. While official specs have not been announced, the phone is rumored to feature a 4.3-inch 720p display, dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, 5 megapixel main camera paired with a 1.6 megapixel front-facing camera. AT&T will start selling the HTC First on April 12th for $99.99 with a two-year contract with pre-orders kicking off today. HTC and Facebook will also be launching the HTC First in Europe on EE and Orange, but specific launch details have yet to be announced.
The specs of the HTC First aren’t far off from what HTC delivered with the Windows Phone 8X, but the software experience will be dramatically different. The HTC First will be running Android 4.1 with HTC Sense 4.5 and a custom launcher named Facebook Home. The idea is to make the HTC First a “people first” device rather than the phone experience revolving around the traditional “apps first” approach that everyone else has been pushing.
“The home screen is really the soul of your phone, you look at it about a hundred times a day.”
-Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook Home will dramatically change the way you interact with your phone by bringing all of your friends and family from Facebook to the very front of your device. At its core, Facebook Home is a family of apps which allow “beautiful, immersive updates” which keep you informed on people, not apps. The app launcher lets you launch apps like any other launcher, but you also have the ability to update your status, do a location check-in or span a quick picture.
Facebook Messaging and SMS have been combines into a new application called ChatHeads. When users receive a new message, a circle with a picture with your contact’s picture (chat head) appears on the side of the screen. User can dismiss the notification or tap it to reply. ChatHeads also allows you to carry on group conversations between multiple contacts all in one conversation thread.
While the HTC First is the first official phone from Facebook, current Android user will be able to download the application from Google Play starting on April 14th. Facebook is also working on a version of the application which will be optimized for tablets. But there’s more, Facebook is also partnering with Samsung Sony and other smartphone manufacturers to develop more Facebook Home exclusive devices.
