Facebook phone to be unveiled tomorrow?
Facebook is holding an event on January 15 at its HQ and another event simultaneously in London. Like any other major event that takes place, speculations are high about what the social networking giant will unveil at the event.
The January 15 event could just as well be about a major update coming to the social networking site, but that would just be routine. What is surprising however is the fact that there are rumours circulating the Internet, which suggest that the long awaited Facebook phone may finally make an appearance.
This is not the first time that we have heard rumours about the social networking website divulging into the smartphone space and the idea isn’t bad. The last time we heard rumours about the Facebook phone, we ended up receiving the HTC ChaCha, which was a standard smartphone with an added Facebook button for easy access to the social networking service. You can read our review of the smartphone here.
At the F8 event in 2011, the social networking website was expected to announce the infamous Facebook phone but instead we got a feature called Timeline.
Even if Facebook plans to unveil a Facebook Phone, there are a lot of questions that need answering. To start with, what OS will the smartphone run on? In a world where Android and iOS are leading the market with Windows Phone catching up can a new-dedicated social networking OS survive? Not to mention the fact that Facebook is available as an app across all the platforms. Read Facebook phones a waste of time?
TechCrunch goes on to say, “Details are slim here as well, but the obvious answer would be a fork of Android. This would allow the OS to run hundreds of thousands of apps already out there. With Amazon seeing some success doing this with their Kindle Fire tablets (and soon their own phone as well), this could have emboldened Facebook to make the move now.
Another possibility is webOS. That OS won rave reviews as an elegant counter to iOS and Android when Palm released it several years ago. Then HP acquired the company, promising that they would “double down” on webOS. Then HP started playing a deadly game of musical chairs with their leadership and webOS was basically taken out back behind the shed. But HP did go out of their way to open-source the OS recently. So… I suppose it’s possible. But probably far less likely than Android simply because the ecosystem is already there and that OS is much more mature.
Probably even less likely is Facebook building their own OS from scratch. It’s simply a lot of work to do so. And again, without an ecosystem to support it, adoption could be rough (though maybe Facebook cares less about that if they’re targeting the emerging markets).”
What do you think? Will Facebook finally unveil the rumoured Facebook Phone? Or will this event be something about the future of the social networking website?
Source: TechCrunch
Also read,
HTC Opera UL rumoured as the official Facebook phone
Mark Zuckerberg denies rumours of a Facebook phone
Facebook-HTC phone rumoured to launch in 2013