Facebook Home steals the Android experience

Written by

Matt Drance:

Do you enter uncharted territory, make your own mobile operating system, and hope people switch?

Of course not. You make your competitor’s system yours — overnight. Facebook Home is a trojan horse designed to steal the Android experience, and the Android user base, right out of Google’s hands.

It’s a brilliant move by Facebook, especially since Google is trying so hard to compete with Facebook. I chuckle every time I think about it.



71 thoughts on “Facebook Home steals the Android experience”

  1. i freaking love what facebook did. I’m not exactly a fan of that company, but anything that sends a fuck you notice to google is awesome.

  2. It’s a bold move, but people will download this not knowing what it is, then be shocked when it changes their phone. I don’t see this taking off.

  3. Really? I think this is going to be immensely popular for those using Android phones primarily as feature phones… who I’m willing to bet outnumber those really using Android.

    It’ll be interesting to see what Google does. It’ll also be interesting to see if it pushes Apple to more deeply integrate Facebook into iOS 7 or 8.

  4. It’s what Samsung and HTC have been trying to do all along with their custom home screens. De-brand the OS and sell it as something you built. Google’s never going to get its user experience in front of users in this hostile environment.

  5. I have more respect for Facebook, who at least haven’t spent a great deal of effort trying to brand themselves as the free and open alternative.

    I can’t wait to see this catch fire.

  6. “Facebook Home is a trojan horse designed to steal the Android experience, and the Android user base, right out of Google’s hands.”

    This is where I diverge with two points:
    1) Google allows this, on purpose. It is a keystone to their reason for building Android.
    2) Facebook Home does not exist without Android so Facebook isn’t stealing anything; most likely adding to the user base, if anything.

    Android is all about this and FB Home isn’t the first to do this. They are just the biggest and, IMHO, the best experience of any other launchers.

  8. They will have to download it and approve FB Home to run when they access their home screen. FB can’t do this on their own without user approval.

    When/if they do, they are informed how to turn it off too so it won’t be a big issue.

  11. But they initially are only creating this for the GS3/4, note 2 and HTC one variants.

  12. If they had a lock down experience from the start little companies would of adopted it. With people never being able to buy a phone with Google services.

  15. Here’s what puzzles me- Google has always known (and if they didn’t Kindle and Nook demonstrated it) this could be done. As Google may be the biggest WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) company ever what is their end game? It puzzles me to know it MUST be a Google trap but can’t see how it is a trap.
    Comments (please)?

  16. Google created Android so that they would always have a home on mobile for their services so that they can sell ads.

    If Facebook is successful, they could wrest users away from Google on mobile phones. Users will use Facebook messages instead of Gmail. Facebook could use Bing for maps and search. What good does it do Google if people use Android but they don’t make money from it?

  17. I don’t think that Google ever saw anyone making a successful product without using their services. Amazon showed the way and Facebook followed.

  18. All the apps and services are still there, Maps, Chrome and Search aren’t touched.

  19. What if users never leave the Facebook launcher?

    What if Facebook Home uses Bing for maps like they do on the website?

  20. Possible, but notifications from other apps are still there. While Facebook is a popular site, people don’t use it exclusively. They use Netflix, Google, YouTube, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Twitter and more. All of these apps are literally a flick to the left away.

  24. It will mean nothing. Have you used Android? Google isn’t making money on ads from the launcher or anywhere else in Android. The Play Store ads are of store content so more “featured items” than ads.

    If FB uses any ad system, it will be their own and it won’t matter a lick to Google ’cause they lost nothing but gained everything: new users.

  25. Weird, he had a comment at first but now it is gone. It said: “OK, I’ll bite. Just what is Google’s reason for building Android?” That’s what I responded to below.

  28. What user would download something, if they can’t use their apps? If FB did this they would get kicked off the Play Store. In the rules it says you can’t interfere with 3rd party apps.

  29. No, they didn’t. Here is why they created Android: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rYozIZOgDk. (has nothing to do with ads and there are zero ads in the OS)

    This is purely a launcher and, again, is nothing new. You seriously have to learn Android to understand this as nothing more than another launcher: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=launcher&c=apps.

    They are common and are used by millions of people already. This changes nothing for Google.

  31. Uh. You haven’t kept up with the news! Google’s already started throwing out ad blockers.

    This is all about ad revenue. It has to be; otherwise, Google couldn’t be a publicly traded company.

    They’re responsible to the shareholders. Period.

  33. Sure I have. Ad blockers aren’t what we were talking about. Tvaddic said “All the apps and services are still there, Maps, Chrome and Search aren’t touched.” and you said “Today”.

    Now you’re talking about ad blockers?

    Their money doesn’t come from the default launcher being used. If it did, launchers wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t have Samsung/HTC/etc versions of them.

  34. No, I’m talking about Facebook taking over all these services by tightly integrating their apps, one a time.

    It’s easy for Google to stand by their stated principles when things go their way. (And, it should be noted, they don’t even do it then.) Wait until it start costing them significant cash.

  36. What’s different? Nothing. You can use a different mail client, browser, install apps from outside sources (side load), text messaging, voicemail, etc AND set them all as defaults.

    It still means a new user on Android, period.

  37. Because you made no sense so I was trying to understand your point.

    A publicly traded company can’t offer something for free and make money from outside services?

  38. It doesn’t matter why Rubin&Friends developed Android, what matters is why Google bought Android.

    When Google bought Android, there were three major players in mobile: Symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry.
    Symbian had the most marketshare, but Windows Mobile was what the cool kids were using.

    The difference between Windows Mobile and the other OS was, that Microsoft had their own search technology and their own ad networks.

    Had Microsoft won the mobile space, they would also have won mobile search – and as we now all know, mobile search has become close to as important as regular search (We can buy stuff wherever we are – so displaying ads wherever we are is now very important).

    Google bought Android to combat Windows Mobile.

    (Suddenly, Windows Mobile lost all importance and the new cool kid was iPhone OS – and probably to Google’s horror they realized that the company they were now friends with – Apple – became angry with them for releasing a clone of their OS – the results of that can be seen in iOS 5 with Siri (replacing some kinds of search) and iOS 6 (replacing Google Maps and YouTube))

    Now there is Facebook and instead of creating their own Facebook OS – like Amazon did – they did something even more genius.

    They released a trojan horse.

    Now every Android phone (well, not right now, but they will release Facebook Home for more and more different devices over time) can become a Facebook Phone.

    Facebook doesn’t have to create their own Android-based OS and marketplace like Amazon did, but all the things that count have become facebookified – Messaging, social recommendations (spiced with ads), location of the user and probably what kind of apps he is using.

    Search can also be replaced with a Facebook service, due to their partnership with Microsoft.

    Just like Google tried to clone Facebook with their – fruitless – Google+ efforts – Facebook can now pick the fruit right from the tree.

    To become a successful web service, you need at least two different services:
    1. Search
    2. Social Networking

    Google is great in 1. but nobody cares for their 2.
    Facebook is great in 2. and has a partnership with Microsoft for 1. – and even though some may say Bing is not as good as Google Search – i doubt that many people would actually notice if they were using Bing instead of Google.

    There’s another third thing you need to become successful – a mobile platform.

    Google has one.
    Facebook is going to make Google’s platform their own.

    I actually don’t care that much for Facebook and I won’t ever use Facebook Home (especially because I won’t switch to Android) – but kudos to them, because they understand what Steve Jobs meant when he said that good artists copy and great artists steal.

    Facebook just did exactly that.

    They aren’t copying Android like Amazon did, they are stealing it from Google.

    You have to remember that this is just RELEASE ONE!
    HTML 5 Farmville in the Facebook app?
    Soonish.

    Facebook Appstore? A bit later.

  39. There is no trojan horse. Please, spend time with Android and learn what a launcher is.

    None of your points regarding where Facebook will take this can be done with a launcher.

    Search is an app and can be replaced now with ease (download an app, set as default, done). Google Now is directly integrated into the FB Home app so they are embracing Google search already.

    Amazon didn’t copy Android, they are outright using it.

    FB has the right to take Android, fork it, and do their own thing outside of the Alliance but nothing about this move has anything to do with it.

    People…it is a launcher!! Man…these conspiracy theories are out there.

  42. Search can be a widget – and to which page this widget leads can be set by the creator of the widget, in this case Facebook.

    Have you been sleeping in a cave?

    Did you hear how Samsung is not mentioning Android anymore, how Amazon is not mentioning Android anymore and with Facebook Home – an Android device won’t look or work like an Android device anymore – step by step.

    When Samsung releases Tizen, adds support for Android apps – the Galaxy S 5 or 6 won’t have to run Android anymore – and Samsung is now starting to create their own S-services.

    Facebook Home is a threat to Android (not the OS – but Google’s domination of it) just as Firefox OS is one – not especially for all the OPEN!!!!!!! fandroids, but for the countless people who don’t care what OS the thing is running.

    With this approach, Facebook can promise those people that they will have better Facebook integration and still be be able to use all their old apps.

    Huge userbase from day one.

    Over time, they can replace Google services one by one.

    This is just the FIRST STEP!

    Someone compared this situation to the Motorola ROKR – the first iTunes phone.

    This is the Facebook-branded phone.

    The real Facebook phone will follow – and it will be a threat to Google.

    1. Very Few people want ads on their home screen.

    2. Bing is the default search engine on IE, and Google still makes money, and they did before Chrome. Also IE has been growing market share, but Google’s search share/revenue has been unchanged. People seek out Google.

    3. Facebook can not replace any service, Google or other. Because it is against the rules. They could make it harder, but doing that would drive the users of Home angry. Potentially angry enough to delete the “app.”

    1. People won’t see ads on their homescreen, they will see “recommendations” of products they will probably like.

    Ads that interest people is the whole reason why Like/+1-buttons exist, why adwords exist etc…

    A “Why don’t you eat Alberto pizza?” displayed at just the moment when you were thinking what to buy for dinner is the way to go and it will increase the revenue of the company displaying those ads and the acceptance of the ad.

    1. Google is paying lots and lots of money to Mozilla and Apple to become the default search engine – if they were absolutely sure that people care so much for Google results that they would switch whatever default search engine is used to Google – they would stop paying billions for the prime spotlight.

    2. Of course they can – they can’t remove a service without the users consent, but that’s not what is meant here.

    If Facebook releases a navigation app with whatever social mumbojumbo that people would love to use – people will download it and use it instead of the default navigation.

    But that is so obvious – Google just did it with Google Maps on iOS and even the more strict Apple didn’t stop them (but that could be because Apple’s revenue model has already brought them the major revenue they earn from a user the moment they bought the device – Google needs a user to use their services to make money).

  45. They would take a dump on “open” if it made them “winner” for all time.

    They only care for open because it increases their userbase and might increase their profit.

    If you believe them that they love open because OPEN!, you also believe Amazon with their “Tablets don’t have to cost as much as an iPad” rhetoric.

    If Amazon were able to sell 128GB iPads for 800+ Dollars AND sell content and earn 13 billion dollars in a good quarter – they would do it.

    But they know that they have no chance selling their Kindle Fire devices for the same price as an iPad and instead try to bleed the other companies to death.

    Undercut every competitor and hope that your funds will last long enough until you dominate the market and can charge whatever you like.

    Google embraces open systems only as long as the open systems are using Google services.

    An open OS using Firefox with Do-Not-Track and Bing or DuckDuckGo as the default search engine, running LibreOffice and using Vimeo for watching videos online, with Dropbox or Ubuntu One as cloud storage – that would be one of the most open systems imaginable.

    And Google would absolutely detest it!

    I guess i do know why Google is still paying Mozilla so much money, even though Firefox has become much less important on the desktop.

    Because if Firefox OS were using Bing or DuckDuckGo as default search engine, Google would have a problem in mobile.

    Cheaper than Android devices and no revenue for Google, not even through people using their services.

  46. No, no cave. Widgets are definitely customized by the developer but the great thing about widgets are: you have a chose of which one’s to use.

    If FB opens widget support, you simply replace theirs with yours. If they lock it down to a forced widget on Home (unlikely seeing as it negates “people first” by having a bar across pics), use Google Now (which easy access is baked in).

    I see it as a launcher because that’s what it is. You can speculate on an FB Browser (I laugh but would have at a Google one a few years back), etc all day but it means nothing for what FB Home is today: a launcher.

    Wishful thinking is cool and all but don’t try to bake it as gospel.

    Yes, Samsung is doing their own services and they only mentioned Android once in the keynote. Ok. Sure they could replace Android with Tizen, if it shows to be as good.

    All of this threat stuff is just weird to me. A company builds a platform for others to build on either directly w/ Google (Samsung, HTC, etc) or alone (Amazon) and when someone utilizes one option over the other it is some big threat. It isn’t an loophole…this is on purpose.

    Yes, it is possible FB will do their own OS completely. That’s very possible.

  48. Yes, I believe Amazon because we all know Apple has high margins on their products. They could decrease their margins at any time they chose but Apple is about money in their pockets…Amazon is about money in our pockets. (different topic though)

    Why would Google detest your Uber Open system? It is just like iOS or any other OS out their: a competitor. That doesn’t mean they would detest people having options.

    They embrace Android’s openness because they believe it is better for the industry and people, IMHO (and based on their Introduction video).

    iOSers (especially Rene Ritchie) love to point out, rightfully so, how Google makes more money on iOS than on Android. If profit was their immediate motivation, Android would be dead in the water or open would have stopped long ago.

  49. That introduction video is BS, Android is not about openness but about not being locked out from the users.

    Google couldn’t let Microsoft dominate mobile, because Microsoft was competing in EVERY service that Google was offering at that time and if Microsoft had dominated, nobody would use Google services on a mobile phone anymore.

    Amazon is not about money in your pockets, it’s about dominating ecommerce and in the long run ALL commerce.

    Amazon wants to dominate ebooks, apps, mp3-downloads, movie streaming (they planned their own movie studio long before Netflix did) and wants a slice of stuff nobody would have ever imagined to be sold online – you can buy toilet paper on amazon!

    Charging less for these services than competitors (just look at how they are selling songs for 97c instead of 99c) is not about being less greedy, it’s about making sure people buy at Amazon instead of “the other company”.
    When “the other companies” have gone out of business, Amazon will earn a percentage of everything people buy.

    This is not about short term benefits, but benefits in the very very long run.

    Just like Android.

    The other reason why Android exists is because of lower priced devices – Google wanted to become the new Symbian, because they knew Apple wouldn’t do this.

    In the long run, even the people who don’t spend a dime on Android apps will earn Google a profit, just by using the devices for featurephone-stuff and basic smartphone stuff.

    Google wants the maybe 500 million users of iPhones and high end Android phones which spend a lot on smartphones AND the 1.5 billion people which will only earn Google maybe 10 dollars per year per user.

    1. Dude, it doesn’t matter!

    You know what? I clicked dozens of sponsor-links in DaringFireball and here, because they link to stuff that I find interesting.

    Yes, they are ads, but they show me stuff that i want, but which i didn’t knew until that moment.

    I very rarely click on other ads, actually I am usually using adblock.

    Imagine you’re planning a meeting with two friends.

    Facebook knows what kind of food you all like, Facebook knows where you have been eating (because of their Foursquare-clone) and it knows where you and your friends live.

    Facebook will now recommend a restaurant for your meeting which is the shortest distance from each of your homes away and where you had a similar meeting in the past (you liked that place, so you probably liked it there).

    Facebook will receive a small fee from that restaurant, which had a Facebook partnership (and an ad budget) for years for this recommendation.

  51. You can chant the “Google is not evil and doing things just because openness is awesome” chant as long as you want, you still have no clue what you’re talking about.

    It doesn’t matter why Andy Rubin created Android nearly ten years ago, what matter’s is why Google has bought Android and is developing it.

    And that’s definitely NOT just to save other companies the hassle to adapt Linux to a mobile phone, when they are creating their own mobile platform.

    Google wanted to make it easier and cheaper for people to use THEIR services.

    Baidu phones using ONLY Baidu services?

    Aliyun OS?

    Kindle Fire?

    Not what Google planned!

  52. Isn’t it funny that someone so cynical about Apple is so naive about the intentions of Google, Facebook and Amazon? Let’s wait another year and see if Facebook Home is “just a launcher”.

  59. How many consumers out there who aren’t tech nerds will buy their first smartphone this year? How many of those will see Facebook’s UI, hear a carrier store salesman’s simplistic pitch, and believe that’s all there is to the device, regardless of the setup procedure?

  60. I don’t know which you love more, Android, or defending Google until your fingers fall off. You’ve fallen head over heels for the “open” propaganda.

    Tell me, if Googles true objective was this undying love for “open” platforms, then why was Acer threatened to be kicked out of the “Alliance” for helping develop that one platform which was attempting to fork Android. Compatibility issues? If Google is preaching about the beauty of open source, but then threatens to shun an “ally” for helping develop a new platform using the Android source code, that doesn’t really display a love for open source.

    The objective of Android started with good intent back in the Windows Mobile days, but once the iPhone and the App Store came along, it changed all of that. Developing mobile applications and publishing instantly became much more accessible to any developer, once the App Store came along. Which if I remember correctly was part of the mission for Android. Then they started using the open argument as propaganda. What Androids openness means today to consumers is UNMODERATED. But a true open source project that benefits the entire industry as a whole, competitors and allies alike, is not what Android is.

    Which open source project has impacted it’s respective industries more by benefitting everyone, regardless of competition. WebKit or Android? I’d say WebKit. It’s not only benefitted Apple, but it’s benefitted practically every single one of Apples competitors as well. Not only that, it has benefitted the Internet as a whole, helping usher in an era of standards based development through HTML5 instead of plug ins. Also benefitting consumers by giving everyone the Internet in their pocket.

    And this open source nature has benefitted WebKit itself, by allowing all these different companies to contribute to its development and improve the engine for everyone.

    And who would you guess is now forking WebKit for themselves to make their own engine? Google? No way. The company that is such a good citizen and loves open source so much and giving back to their community, competitor and ally alike?

    If you can’t see through Googles open propaganda, you should reexamine things. I’m not saying Android isn’t an open source project. But the way Google manages Android, through the “open alliance” and bullying Acer from pursuing a forked Android platform, really doesn’t scream a company that practices what they preach.

  61. The Open Handset Alliance has rules. Acer wasn’t following those with Aliyun OS so Google let them know it would no longer be a part of the OHA.

    http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/14/3335204/google-statement-acer-smartphone-launch-aliyun-android

    I’m not here defending Google/Android for the sake of my love (oh and my fingers are still here). In no way am I blinded by love for any platform. My views are my views.

    WebKit, until Google launches Blink, benefited more from Google than Apple in recent years. Google was the top contributor to WebKit and I agree it definitely has had a greater impact than Android on the world.

    I have no problem with Google building Blink. It isn’t ideal as I’d prefer everyone on one engine (makes it easier on us devs) but after reading the reasons and realizing it was a fork (not a new engine; a fork means you do still contribute to ‘master’ but there are other bits not in master) my concerns were lightened. We’ll see how it all works out.

    You have to understand one key bit that I think you and many others miss. Android is open, to an extent. That doesn’t inherently mean Google as a whole is open so don’t grade them as such. Apple has a history with WebKit but name another major open initiative. I have no issue with Apple for this either. They embraced WebKit and did a marvelous job but I don’t expect them to open iOS code for us to read just because they forked KHTML (see…forks aren’t all that bad).

  62. Google is an advertising company. Facebook is an advertising company. If Facebook is able to co-opt a large percentage of the Android install base and the low-end “feature”/cheap smart phone base, and have a persistent interface that can track the user and push ads whenever Facebook wants, who are advertisers going to put their mobile ad budget with? Google or Facebook?

    Facebook.

  63. Google is not going to say it is out to dominate mobile advertising in its Android intro video.

  64. Huh? That’s making no sense.

    If FB put ads on Home (which they alluded they will), what ads from Google will be removed?

    Android doesn’t have ads, Google or otherwise, anywhere in the OS. Android apps do and will still have Google (or whichever provider the dev chose) ads.

  65. They offer an ad platform for developers to use. How does Android have anything to do with their ad platform?

    AdMob may have the desire to dominate mobile advertising, which I would expect of all ad providers, but that’s not Android specific as it works on iOS and others.

  67. it makes total sense if you understand how advertisers allocate their spending budget. Why advertise in multiple places on Android when Facebook Home gives you a very high visibility rate and click-thru rate?

  68. I get that with no prob.

    What doesn’t make sense is how you think advertisers will stop supporting apps just because FB Home provides ads and somehow you equate that to FB taking thunder from Google even though they don’t advertise in Android.

    Advertisers will not put all of their eggs in Home. They will undoubtedly support apps just as they do now no matter what launcher is used.

  69. If Facebook did that, they would have to start from scratch. They won’t have access to the Google services, and the play store and it’s apps. And if they updated Home to do that, Google would kick it off the store, because it interfered with 3rd party apps.

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