Facebook Home gets first update; now available for HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4

Facebook’s fledgling Home for Android has already hit one million downloads. And to add icing to the celebratory cake, the social networking giant is rolling out new updates for the app as well as making it available for Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One

These updates have appeared in the form of a Facebook for Android update that is available on the Google Play store now. Currently, Home users will only see major bug fixes and performance improvements with the app.

There is more than just bug fixes up Facebook’s sleeve, though. Upcoming plans for Facebook Home include a Dash Bar buddy list for starting chats, an improved dock for all your favourite apps, as well as a better user experience onboarding flow, according to VP of Engineering for Facebook, Cory Ondrejka. The Chat Heads feature is also in the process of becoming smoother. Sadly, Ondrejka has not given a time frame for these updates, so you will have to be content with merely performance tweaks and quashed bugs for now. There are reports, however, that these updates will be made a regular feature with one update rolling out every four weeks or so.

Updates and support for more phones! Facebook celebrating a million downloads in style

Facebook has also proudly announced that Home has been downloaded a million times ever since its release last month. We’re inclined to take these figures with a pinch of salt since this does not mean Facebook Home has one million users. It could well be possible that a part of these users deleted the app after a while.

The figures also don’t take into consideration phones that have been using Home via leaked APKs. According to some estimates, there are about 10,000 people using Home through these APKs that are freely available.

Only yesterday, it was announced that less than a month since HTC First, the first phone with Facebook Home preloaded, was launched, it has experienced a drastic drop in price. AT&T, the carrier on which First launched, is now offering a special discount for those looking to jump on to the Home bandwagon. The original price of the phone was $350.99 for the unlocked version, while the earlier on-contract price was $99. And AT&T is now offering a whopping 99 percent discount for the phone with a two-year contract. Yes, that actually comes to less than Rs 50. It must be noted that at this price, the phone will still be on contract for two years.

While there are only a handful of devices that support Facebook Home right now, the social networking giant does have plans to release its Android experience for more devices soon, according to chief Mark Zuckerberg.

Go on and update your Facebook for Android app to have these updates reflect on your phones.