
Facebook phone rumors resurface: cloud-based, HTC-built? - lotusleaf1987
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/facebook-phone-rumors-resurface-cloud-based-htc-built/
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bitskits
I don't understand what this would give you that a mobile optimized site, or
an app wouldn't. Given that, and Facebook's history of making private data
public, rather abruptly (even today, with the news of sponsored checkins), I'd
be interested to see how many people are really interested in this.

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alexgartrell
To answer your first question: deep integration. [Hypothetically,] now you can
go to someone's facebook page, see your wall-to-wall, message history, and
text history. It makes your entire social history easily accessible by
unifying the data.

To answer your second question, most people don't care about privacy as much
as geeks do. In fact, most people don't care about privacy at all. Though it's
tempting to say, "they're all just morons and they'll see soon enough," it's
probably also partially the case that we (as geeks) are a little paranoid
ourselves. At least that's what comes to mine when I hit someone's home page
and see a PGP public key.

Disclaimer: I will eventually be employed there, but it's not like I have any
sort of a clue as to whether this is real or not.

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pedanticfreak
Why not? CES saw over 100 tablet launches, most of them Android based. Every
big company should make their own Android spin. Even Disney has one:

[http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/17/disney-to-sell-android-
ph...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/17/disney-to-sell-android-phone-in-
japan-apparently-apple-doesnt/)

HTC, Foxconn, and Samsung will build it with your logo on the back; Google
will provide the OS updates; and you just need to provide the value add like
integration with a popular service whether that's Facebook, MTV, or Disney.
Even Barnes and Noble was able to make a nice Android device with its own App
Store.

Such a venture could easily pay for itself like Google's Chrome and Android
projects did. It's a tough call. No matter what Facebook is reliant on Google
and Apple for its mobile future. Then again the easiest path for Facebook
(i.e. Android) also ties them even more closely to Google's whims.

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flashgordon
If FB did come out with a phone, what would their OS be?

Android? Windows X?

Android would be awesome but that would be conceding too much to google.

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Garbage
The post says that it would feature tweaked version of Android.

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idonthack
You didn't actually expect him to _read_ the article, did you?

