Advertisement

Facebook Home gets mixed reviews from users

Since Facebook Home was released to the public, a lot of people have gotten their hands on it. While we can't exactly try it out for ourselves barring

Advertisement
Shunal Doke|Apr 13, 2013, 13:34:44 IST

Ever since Facebook Home was released to the public, a lot of people have gotten their hands on it. While we can't exactly try it out for ourselves barring some hacked up version of the install package, we can look at some of the user reviews for Facebook Home on Google Play to give ourselves a good idea of how the app actually is.

Advertisement

Opinions on Facebook Home seem to be polarised. The review rating is averaging out at 2.5 out of 5 stars. The overwhelming consensus seems to steer towards the lower end of the rating scale, though, with the app having gotten 860 1-star reviews, as opposed to only 404 5-star reviews and 187 4-star reviews.

news-analysisMore from News Analysis
The biggest criticism faced by the app is that it eats up too much battery and data usage, while at the same time hampering regular Android features such as widgets. A 1-star review says: "The app's pretty lousy. Causes battery drain, severely hampers operation of your device, it just gets in the way of what you need/want to do."Facebook Home is a complete overhaul of the Android UI

Reactions have been mixed so far

Facebook lovers seem to have taken a liking to Facebook Home, however.  Users have praised the app for being smooth and having quick access to their social feeds.  A 5-star review says: "I have the galaxy note 2 it does a amazing job thank you facebook! Keep up the amazing work!"

Advertisement

Some of the average reviews, namely the 239 3-star reviews, mostly seem to have issues with the restrictions on homescreen customisation that Facebook Home seems to have. One of the 3-star reviews read: "Looks pretty. Messenger is cool with that chatheads. However, we should have more freedom controlling what we want on the Lock screen because I want the phone dialer there."

Facebook Home went live on Google Play in the late hours of the night. At the moment, the app isn't available to Indian users. It is only compatible with some of the highest-end devices out there, including the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Cover Feed on Facebook Home lets users view their News Feed posts as soon as they turn their phone on. They can swipe through these posts to view more, double tap to like a post and then can comment on a post from the cover feed.

Up next is Chat Heads and Messenger. Home users can install Messenger on their devices to send and receive texts and Facebook messages at the same location. Then there is the ability to move in and out of conversations while, say, watching a video or browsing the web. It is possible to type replies right from chat heads. Alternatively, users can choose to move them around, in case they don't want to respond to it right away.

Advertisement

As far as the service's location collecting abilities go, Facebook clarifies that it does not use the location any differently than the Facebook app that users already have on their Android phones. Importantly, it is possible to control the location permission in the phone's settings.

Handpicked stories, in your inbox
Global stories. Indian perspective. Zero noise.
No Spam. Unsubscribe Any Time.

Ever heard of one of those people who just never seem to shut up about something? Shunal is like the nerd equivalent of that guy. Believe us when we say that he can go on talking about games and smartphones for hours on end. We do manage to find some insight in his insane ramblings though, and through his moronic facade, he does seem to know more than he lets on. Sadly enough, it always ends up being about gaming with him. Or stupid, stupid puns.

First Published:Apr 13, 2013, 13:34:44 IST
Advertisement
Advertisement
Trending Stories

China's Kimi K3 challenges US AI leaders with frontier-level performance at lower cost

Chinese artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI has unveiled its latest open-weight AI model, Kimi K3, with early results suggesting it could compete with some of the world's most advanced AI systems developed by leading US companies
2 min read
Advertisement
Advertisement
Up Next