Facebook Home: Good for Facebook, but what about users?

Ladies and gentlemen, the
"Facebook phone" is here. Only
it isn't actually a phone. It's
an app.
As (cough, cough) someone
predicted amidst all the "OMG
FB PHONE! " and " holy forked
version of Android! " noise last
week, Facebook's big
announcement this morning
was about a launcher -- and
little more.*
Facebook Home , as the
product's called, is a custom
Android launcher that'll be
available in the Google Play
Store starting next Friday.
Custom launchers are nothing
new to the Android platform;
they've been around since the
days of Cupcake (a really old
version of the operating
system, for the uninitiated).
An Android launcher, in short,
is an app that replaces your
device's default home screen
and app drawer setup. It
doesn't overwrite or remove
anything; it simply sits on top
of your phone's existing
configuration as a new UI
layer, akin to if you installed a
custom desktop UI program on
top of Windows. It's not a full-
blown modified version of
Android, a la Samsung
TouchWiz or HTC Sense;
rather, it runs in conjunction
with an existing Android build
without altering it in any way.
While Android launchers are
traditionally focused on letting
power users tweak and
customize the stock
environment , the Facebook
Home launcher is focused --
as you'd expect -- on making
Facebook the core of your
smartphone experience. It
replaces your default home
screen and lock screen with
the Facebook Cover Feed (i.e.
News Feed) and provides an
integrated Facebook/SMS chat
system that carries throughout
the OS.
Here's the funny thing: The
Facebook Home UI actually
doesn't look half-bad . As I
remarked in the moments after
its introduction, the launcher
might be appealing -- if, you
know, it didn't force your
phone to revolve completely
around Facebook.
That's the problem, though: It
does. Your traditional home
screen with apps and widgets
is gone, replaced by a giant
full-screen Facebook stream.
You can still get to a regular
app drawer to run other
things, of course, but the
entire environment is very
much designed to keep
Facebook front and center,
wherever you look.
Along those same lines, the
Facebook Home setup will
soon feature ads, according to
His Zuckness -- "sponsored
posts" scattered throughout
your friends' updates, just like
they are on the regular
Facebook News Feed. The
difference is that here, the
News Feed is your home
screen and lock screen -- the
core of your smartphone
experience -- and you'll be
inviting the ads into that
precious space.
All considered, it's easy to see
how the new Facebook Home
launcher is good for Facebook.
Unless your life revolves
completely around Facebook,
though, it's hard to see how
it'd be good for you.
* Facebook did introduce a
phone to go along with its new
launcher -- the HTC First, to
be sold by AT&T starting next
Friday -- but it's basically just
a normal midrange phone that
comes with the Facebook
Home launcher preinstalled.
Bragging about a phone
having a launcher preinstalled
is like bragging about a phone
having Flipboard preinstalled
("Anyone can download and
install it in 12 seconds, but
with this phone, it comes
preloaded -- and you probably
can't uninstall it!"). Bloatware
isn't a feature.
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