Could Apple attempt to compete with Facebook Home in iOS 7?

[pmontanarella]

**Please keep in mind everything in this article is purely an idea and is not based on any rumors

Today Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook’s latest attempt at making its users more and more active on the network with a new Android Home Screen, appropriately called Facebook Home. In an interview after the presentation Zuckerberg said

The great thing about Android is that it's so open

while talking about the possibility of Facebook Home coming to iOS, going on to say that, due to Apple’s restrictions on iOS

Anything that happens with Apple is going to happen with [a] partnership.

This new feature introduced as an option for Android users could draw even more users away from iOS and on to Google’s mobile OS, especially users looking for an integrated sharing system for the OS, and not only Facebook users, as a matter of fact, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook Home

will be open

and went on to say that over time other social networks will be able to integrate into the service, such as Instagram and Google’s Google+.

Apple’s Options:
While Zuckerberg made it very clear he’d be happy to port Facebook Home over to iOS if Apple allowed it, I don’t see Apple allowing that because that would be admitting that Facebook is better than them even on the mobile OS side of things. Apple could however have been working on a similar service for iOS 7, or could possibly work to integrate it into iOS 8.

New App “Social Center”:
Apple could be launching a new app in iOS 7, or iOS 8, called something along the lines of “Social Center” to give users a seamless experience for social networking. Apple could give APIs to developers to have their app integrate directly into “Social Center”, say for example you download the Twitter app, you don’t actually get a new app but you get a new section in “Social Center” with your Twitter account and your Twitter timeline. It would be the same for Facebook, and possibly other services such as Instagram, Flickr and even Google+. You could look at the different timelines for each service or have unified timeline and you could post to all at once, or only to specific networks. Lastly iOS’s current sharing settings could integrate with this new app, to give you options to share to many different networks, other than the current Facebook and Twitter. Potentially Apple could integrate this with Game Center as well, to play find your friends more easily, and even add some sort of function for chat for the services that support it such as Facebook.

Just an idea I had, let me know what you guys think about it

 

[F123D]

Keep facebook home away from my phone and any future phone I own. I don't need to know what Jenny is eating for dinner when I turn my phone on.

 

[Michael Goff]

At this point, I don't think so.

iOS 7 is likely to be, at the very least, previewed in July. They'd have to do a lot of work to change what they've done, unless they were planning on doing that from the start.

 

[Tinmania]

I seriously hope they don't. Being excluded from this Facebook crap is a plus for iOS in my opinion.




Michael

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Not going to let Facebook Home

it's way into any smartphone I use.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I'm switching back to iOS just so I never have to see Facebook Home ever.

 

[atticus27]

hopefully they do more with twitter and let facebook die. I prefer android to iOS(after using iphones for 4 years it got pretty stale to me) and I think this facebook "skin/phone" look retarded.
I wish google + would have taken off. They have a lot better features than facebook.

 

[onthecouchagain]

FB Home will never be on my phone. Ever. Heck, I barely use the FB app. It's a piece of turd (both on iOS and Android).

 

[mib1800]

I'm switching back to iOS just so I never have to see Facebook Home ever.

I dont know whether you are jesting or not but anyway you do realise Facebook home is just another homescreen/launcher option out of many available.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I dont know whether you are jesting or not but anyway you do realise Facebook home is just another homescreen/launcher option out of many available.

Yeah, but it doesn't mean it's not going to show up everytime I update Facebook (if it's built in) to choose a default launcher, hoping I accidentally activate it.

 

[mib1800]

Yeah, but it doesn't mean it's not going to show up everytime I update Facebook (if it's built in) to choose a default launcher, hoping I accidentally activate it.

You can deactivate it as easily.
But to change platform because of it.....

 

[Vegastouch]

Of course i use Facebook but i do not use the FB widget. Not sure how i would feel about the FB home til i see a preview. But im not a big user of FB where im on it a lot during the day. Ive hardly used it to day in fact.

 

[Jessica Lares]

You can deactivate it as easily.
But to change platform because of it.....

I'm joking. I don't even have it installed. And I'm moving back to iOS when the 5S is out anyway.

 

[paulsalter]

New App “Social Center”:
Apple could be launching a new app in iOS 7, or iOS 8, called something along the lines of “Social Center” to give users a seamless experience for social networking. Apple could give APIs to developers to have their app integrate directly into “Social Center”, say for example you download the Twitter app, you don’t actually get a new app but you get a new section in “Social Center” with your Twitter account and your Twitter timeline. It would be the same for Facebook, and possibly other services such as Instagram, Flickr and even Google+. You could look at the different timelines for each service or have unified timeline and you could post to all at once, or only to specific networks. Lastly iOS’s current sharing settings could integrate with this new app, to give you options to share to many different networks, other than the current Facebook and Twitter. Potentially Apple could integrate this with Game Center as well, to play find your friends more easily, and even add some sort of function for chat for the services that support it such as Facebook.

I like this idea, but we don't want Apple copying Samsung as they already have this

It can't be as bad as the Samsung social app though, IMO

Sorry folks, couldn't resist the line about copying

 

[0dev]

I seriously hope they don't. Allowing sharing to the main social networks in stock apps is useful, but forcing social feeds down our throats like Facebook Home would be horrid.

I do wish iOS allowed sharing to more than just Twitter and Facebook though. They should release some sort of API to allow other social apps to create a sharing option in the Photos app etc.

 

[zbarvian]

Say what you will about it, but Facebook home is probably the best designed, coolest thing I've seen on Android besides Google Now. Unfortunately, I think Facebook overestimates how much people like Facebook. Not sure many users want their home screen to be run by Facebook chat, status updates, or photos from semi-friends. Still, it's a great example of what can be done with Android's openness, and I'm hoping other companies create similar experiences for their services in the future.

 

[daveathall]

I don't use Facebook so wouldn't use the facility but can see that it may be attractive to some, so why not? I would just disable it, those that want, will be able to enjoy it.

 

[ucfgrad93]

I seriously hope they don't. Allowing sharing to the main social networks in stock apps is useful, but forcing social feeds down our throats like Facebook Home would be horrid.

Agreed. As long as it is optional, I wouldn't mind it. That said, I would never use it.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Could they have some features similar to what is included in Facebook Home? Sure....potentially down the road that could happen (definitely not in iOS 7 though).

But to think they'd give a company like Facebook the keys to the kingdom to skin the OS and basically put their platform front and center.....no way in hell.

 

[Oohara]

I utterly loathe FB myself but I have to admit the UI does have a fresh look and it might appeal to many, especially younger people. But yeah...personally I wouldn't touch the thing lol. Their browser UI is already quite glitchy and FB Home looks like it's practically made to invite embarrassing mistakes. Double tap to like? Holy crap that's going to by done by accident a lot

If this thing takes off, yeah I guess maybe Apple will start losing a few FB-fanatics to Android. But I don't think they'll get get particularly nervous before there are clear signs of that happening. And they sure as hell won't allow FB to be integrated into iOS in any way similar to Home. FB will have to just juice up their own app, and maybe cut a deal to have a bit more integration here and there *shudder*

 

[TheAppleFairy]

I hope not, unless it can be completely shut off.

 

[Hail Caesar]

I really dont want this crap on my iPhone. Android can keep it, its just more bloatware.

 

[Vegastouch]

I really dont want this crap on my iPhone. Android can keep it, its just more bloatware.

Thats not considered bloatware.

 

[TheAppleFairy]

Thats not considered bloatware.

If you don't use FB, wouldn't it be considered bloatware?

 

[paulsalter]

If you don't use FB, wouldn't it be considered bloatware?

If you don't use FB, why would you install it