Facebook Home, the social media-branded series of Android apps that overlays the stock mobile experience, will be available from the Google Play Store today.
Early rumors said Facebook was venturing into the phone business. Instead, the company announced Home, which integrates Facebook features directly into the interface of an Android phone.
The home screen becomes Cover Feed, a full-screen, live updated version of the Facebook News Feed. Status updates from friends and "like" notifications are displayed without needing to open the Facebook app.
Notifications from other applications or from the operating system itself, and messages from contacts other than Facebook are also displayed alongside, and sometimes atop of, the Facebook content.
The Chat Heads features more fully integrates messaging into the operating system, allowing chats with Facebook friends to continue while using other applications or browsing additional content.
For now, Facebook Home will only be available on a select group of Android phones: the HTC One, the HTC One X, the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and the Samsung Galaxy S4. The company may expand the offerings in the future, but for now, this is it.
Of course, you can always pick up the phone made specifically for Facebook Home, the HTC First, also available today from AT&T for $99 with a two-year contract.
The First is a mid-range phone, but it was designed from the start to work with Facebook Home. The underlying Android interface is barebones to cause minimum interference with the new apps. Incidentally, this makes the First a good candidate for rooting, if you're into that.
The HTC First features a 1.4GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 4.3-inch 720p Super LCD display, a 5-megapixel camera rear-facing camera, a 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera and runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and Facebook Home.
Check out Google Play today if you want to try Facebook Home on your phone.