Facebook Home, the newly launched home screen for android devices has surpassed 500k downloads on Google play. This milestone was achieved within five days from the launch of the home screen platform. This figure was noted in the Google play listing of the application and the same was confirmed by Ben Evans via twitter. This application was launched with the objective to convert a smartphone from an application oriented to a more people oriented device and it seems that the idea is gaining popularity.
The “Home” cannot be termed as an application in the true sense of the word. It is rather a kind of user interface with special focus on messaging. In a conversation with a person, a “chat head” icon of that person stays on the home screen for easy access. Even while using other applications in the smartphone, one or many such “chat heads” remain in the corner, ready for any further conversation. Any updates or messages from these people will appear as a bubble on the screen. The chat heads can also be flicked out of the screen if desired. Anyone who is a friend in Facebook can appear as a “chat head”.
The initial rumors indicated that users were not much into the concept of Home, even though the Facebook team had their hopes pinned high on the application. But now the figures show that those rumors were not true as Home has been downloaded almost 100,000 times a day since its launch. Even then, considering that the number of users of Facebook is more than a billion, these figures are not as high as expected. It can be noted that when Instagram was launched for Android devices, the download rate surpassed an eye popping figure of one million downloads a day.
But one can say in favor of Facebook that the application is not available for every device. Some of the selected devices it can be used in include the HTC One X, and the HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy SIII, Galaxy NoteII, along with the Facebook Phone, the HTC First. The rising popularity of Instagram on Android devices makes its recent acquisition by Facebook quite a success. It now seems that Facebook wants to add a few more successful applications in its android chapter.