Facebook Home Unveiled along with Brand New HTC First Smartphone

Social networking giant Facebook at its Menlo Park campus in California on Thursday unveiled the much anticipated 'Facebook Home' application, an Android software which acts more like a user-interface integrating most of the apps into a single hub on the smartphone.

Facebook's Android event also witnessed the launch of HTC First, the first smartphone to house the Facebook Home software. The device will be made available by 12 April.

Features of the Facebook Home software include:

Cover Feed: This feature makes Facebook an official lock screen and home screen on the android smartphone integrating all the apps in one place. Whenever a new update comes up on any apps, the cover feed will pop an alert on the home screen, thereby reducing the need to open each app to look for notifications.

Chat Heads: This features unifies all messenger apps while chatting with friends at any point of time. For example: if a user has opened an app to listen to music, or browse internet, the user receives the message head with an image of the sender's face, enabling the user to ignore or reply while still using the current app.

Notifications: This feature sends notifications to users to view messages which are directly referred them. If a friend writes on one's Facebook Timeline, a notification pops on the home screen and users can just tap on it to view message along with the person's profile pictures.

Apps: Users can put their all favourite apps into one place just by dragging the apps to the homescreen's app launcher for easy access.

The social network giant also announced that Facebook Home will be available in Google Play store for free by 12 April for HTC One X, HTC ONE X+, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2. The new software will also roll out to the upcoming Galaxy S4 and HTC One smartphones and soon the new software will also be made available to other android smartphones in coming days.

The other attraction of the Facebook event was the launch of HTC First.

"True to HTC's track record of providing cutting edge design, and being first to offer new smartphone experiences to the market, the HTC First offers a unique home experience to Facebook's many users," said Peter Chou, CEO HTC during the launch event.

The new smartphone will be available initially in the US on 12 April and later in Europe. There is no word regarding its release in the Indian market.

Key feature of HTC First smartphone: