Facebook Home For iOS and Windows Phone 8 In the Works?

Facebook could make some of the features used in the Facebook Home Android apps available on iOS in the future, but the experience wouldn't be the same, according to a Facebook exec.

"We are going to continue to develop for both," Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said, speaking to the Wall Street Journal. "It is true that Android is enabling us to provide a more immersive Facebook experience than we can on other operating systems. Home is based on the openness of Android. It allows users to customize in ways that Apple does not. We are going to release a new version on iOS, very soon. You will see some of the features from Home will be launched with Apple."

Still, this new version probably won't be as full-featured as the Android version.

"You cannot develop on Apple with the same openness as you can on Android," Sandberg said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said whatever makes it to iOS might be branded differently. "It may or may not be Home," he said. "We could also just bring some of the design values to the iOS app. That might be how it ends up. Or we could build just the lock screen. Maybe then it's not called Home, it's called something else."

CNET also reports that talks are underway to port Facebook Home to the Windows Phone environment. Zuckerberg noted that Facebook would like to make Home available for all mobile devices, but many platforms require extensive negotiations before that would be possible. "Google's Android is open so we don't have to work with them," he said.

Facebook Home is a series of apps that integrates Facebook features directly into the interface of a mobile device.

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.

And 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.