Facebook Launches "Home" For Android 138
Nerval's Lobster writes "Facebook has announced "Home" for Android smartphones (and, eventually, tablets). It's something less than a full Facebook mobile operating system, as some expected before the company's presentation, and more like an app update. Facebook also announced the Facebook Home Program, which will work with several carriers and device makers to pre-load Home onto select devices, including ones built by Samsung, Sony, ZTE, and Lenovo. The first "Home" phone will be the HTC First, a $99.99 phone that will ship April 12 from AT&T. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts and journalists assembled for his presentation that Home was designed to reorient the phone and the Facebook mobile experience around people, not apps: "On one level, Home is the next mobile version of Facebook. On the other, it's a change in the relationship with the next generation of computing devices." Home essentially is a custom start screen for your Android phone, replacing the home screen with one centered on Facebook. While users can access other Android apps on the phone, the focus is on those apps that run on the Facebook platform. Home can also be enabled as a lock screen." Reader RougeFemme points out that France Telecom/Orange will be the first carrier in Europe.
Umm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Agreed... and fuck them for their preloading bullshit. ... and they wonder why we want to root our phones...
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This. Removing the fucking Facebook virus that resisted all attempts to kill the process or opt out is why I spent most of a Saturday rooting my first Android phone.
The type of people who want Facebook are the type that will take the 5 seconds it takes to install that garbage on their phone, so why in hell would you preload it?
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Not available in iOS. In related news, the smartphone share of iOS in US rose by 4% while Andriod dropped by 2%.
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*based on observations on the bus during my morning commute...android phones are being used for Facebook at a roughly equal percentage (but maybe it is just easier to tell when some guy at the front of the bus is on facebook when he's got a galaxy note).
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When do we return to real tech? (Score:3, Insightful)
The last 15 years of internet dominance have been neat, but it seems like all of the "inventions" are clever ways to interact with each other. Entertainment and consumer products are booming, but what actual technologies are we inventing? Or to put it another way: what opportunities have gone past while we've been inventing toys and minting teenage millionaires?
Re:When do we return to real tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Know that tiny device in your pocket that responds to touch and lets you browse the entirety of human knowledge, play games or work from a beach in Tahiti while still letting you call Mom once a week to let her know you're alive? Yeah, that's what technology we invented in the last 15 years. If that doesn't impress you, I'm not sure what will.
Re:When do we return to real tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should be. We worked hard making components smaller, CPUs more energy efficient, touch screens more reliable, operating systems better suited for mobile environments, improved battery power density, created wireless protocols to support higher data rates, and constructed enough radio towers to support all this.
You act like it should have happened overnight.
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But this is just making things *better* instead of making *new* things.
Re:When do we return to real tech? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the sense that a car is nothing but a "better" version of the first wheeled cart. I mean, what the hell have we been doing for the last 7,000 years? Geez.
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I'd rather have an old-style keyboard than a new-style touchscreen.
Incremental advances (Score:2)
All those advances you spoke of are incremental and following a logical progression. It's not that revolutionary. I'm talking about a Mr. Fusion reactor to power every home revolutionary.
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How is a fusion reactor to power every home so much more revolutionary than a smart phone to sit in every pocket?
30 years ago, something with that computational power would be at least the size of a power plant.
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If the overall effort put into micro-sizing people entertainment devices was put into 'proper' research fields then maybe we'd be much closer to:
-Sustainable energy generation that doesn't fuck the the planet.
-Closer to cures for Cancer and HIV
-World Peace
-Proper Space Exploration
-A life where you don't have to work 50 hours a week just to feed your family.
The HTC/Samsung/Apple flagship phones are great and all, but they are hardly IMPORTANT when you step back and look at the continuing [lack of] developmen
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Its still a computer. The only changes are newer software and system on chip devices. Break these down and its still the basic building blocks of the original IBM XT.
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So just like my laptop fifteen years ago, but smaller and doesn't need a modem cable plugged into the wall any more.
smaller (fits in a brief case to fits in a pocket)
faster (can download a picture in a minute or two to can stream video at higher resolution than your 15 year old laptop)
memory / storage ( thousands of times more of both)
touch screen (vs look screens?)
and all that with no cables
I am so impressed by your rapid progress of technological evolution.
I am. I can't imagine why you are being sarcastic
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I am. I can't imagine why you are being sarcastic.
Because all that has done is made doing the same things a bit faster with a bit smaller device. And a lot more ads.
There's very little the average person does today on a phone that they couldn't do fifteen years ago on a laptop. Heck, they could even had had Internet everywhere they went if they didn't mind dragging a satellite antenna with them.
Compared to being able to do things they couldn't do before, a faster Internet on smaller devices is insignificant. Particularly when it's mostly used to shovel ads
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A lot of it is new technologies that have been engineered from the ground up. The end result might look the same to the simepleminded oberserver, but under the hood many processes are happening in different ways.
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Because all that has done is made doing the same things a bit faster with a bit smaller device.
Real time video communication between two people anywhere in the civilized world with devices they have in their pocket isn't something we could do before.
I guess I'm trying to see how high you've set the bar before you'll recognize something as progress. I mean, 1000x times faster, 10 times smaller, with an interface (multi-touch screen with no stylus) that was mostly science fiction 15 years ago and is usable en
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I can't imagine why you are being sarcastic.
Because he's a troll, and you're biting.
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Yes, just like your laptop from 15 years ago that had a cable plugged into the wall. But removing that cable took the collective effort of a $trillion (probably) industry. Could your laptop scale one of its 9 different radios (2G/3G/4G/Bluetooth/Wifi/near field/AM/FM/GPS) up to 64-QAM on the fly based on geography while maintaining a connection for you to watch youtube in your car? How bout doing it for 6-7 hours without being plugged into the wall with a weight measured in grams? I mean, high speed bluetoo
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I'm amazed every time I use a map on my phone—every damn time. It's amazing.
I got my first smart phone (the G1) between two trips to San Francisco. It's completely amazing the way it affected my vacation. Maps, Yelp, and other services... wherever and it just keeps getting better. Consider my G1 from a mere 4.5 years ago compared to a Nexus 4. It's really quite insane.
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Try uploading files with your mobile device without a dedicated app to do so.
It doesn't work, try emailing your cv for example to yourself from your phone. Try making a forum post with an attached file. surprisingly this is a problem on android ios and win8 mobile , it was possible on win mobile 6 its possible on a tablet running linux and of course if you tether your phone to your laptop no problem. Don't know about blackberry, but i'm sure someone will fill in the gap.
Google has become especially annoying
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Just one point. I use Google Picasa web albums without having Google+. I know they are kind of becoming integrated now since I've seen one web album that is on Google+ but mine aren't.
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Sorry man, I just uploaded a firmware file to my router from my browser in Android. Perhaps you're thinking of iOS, I know it's limited in what types of files can be uploaded (I think older version didn't support it at all). Yep, my old Win Mobile 6 phone was pretty open ... but had a lot of bad points about it too stability and interface-wise. Yes, some platforms are far more crippled than they used to be, and people need to fight against that trend, as freedom is hard to regain.
Also, your carrier really c
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I should also add that you can mail any file without problem in Android. I once saw twi iPhone users holding their phone closes to each other while one played an MP3 and the other recorded it. They couldn't get the file to each other any other way. It was pretty damn funny.
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I once saw twi iPhone users holding their phone closes to each other while one played an MP3 and the other recorded it.
Fanboy mating ritual.
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Which browser did you use? I'll give you an example gardenersworld.com has a forum (i've got a tablet running ICS and rooted) now if you go to post a message on android first problem is the text editor will just let you enter text the toolbar is missing (it uses tinymce) so then you get it to send you the desktop site. Ok toolbar is there now. click on the add picture icon pops up a requester select upload a file from your computer and you get a selection of apps to use gallery file manager and a few others
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Using Chrome, but I'm fairly sure you could upload files in the pre-Chrome Android browser, at least for the last couple of versions. Most of that thread seems to be for 2.2 and before, and I don't remember whether it was possible or not. I'd assumed it was, but also frequently used Opera and CyanogenMod at that point as well. With Chrome (now anyway) you generally just click a file select button on a site, and the intent system gives you the choice of a file manager (ES File Manager, etc), Gallery, and a f
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Thanks i will try a few more file managers see if they are more successful.
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could understand if it these were new sims but both date to 2009 and one used to be on contract for a usb modem (till they screwed me and i ended the contract).
Just been having more fun today as i was adviced to talk to one of their stores who emailed a copy of my driving license to their area manager. been talking to customer services who asked me to email customer.services.ie@threemail.com which bounced and then i got told it is @3mail.com
I don't get why they have a problem when they didnt for several yea
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So, your laptop fifteen years ago is just like the Mainframes invented 40+ years ago, but smaller, faster and easier to use.
I am so impressed by the tech in your laptop. Obviously it is the greatest invention ever since slice bread.
By the way, the best movie EVER is Jurassic Park and the music the kids listen to these days SUCK. </sarcasm>
Where's your lawn?
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Know that tiny device in your pocket that responds to touch and lets you browse the entirety of human knowledge, play games or work from a beach in Tahiti while still letting you call Mom once a week to let her know you're alive? Yeah, that's what technology we invented in the last 15 years. If that doesn't impress you, I'm not sure what will.
You don't seem to know much about technology.
None of that has been invented in the last 15 years.
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Ok, show me a tiny, low power multi-core processor like many smartphones have that was around in the late 90's. Show me a touchscreen that had anywhere near the sensitivity of even cheap smartphones today. Or a GPS receiver that could be shoehorned into a tiny phone without sacrificing any of the other gadgets in it. Sure, the precursors of many of today's smartphone components existed but almost nothing in a 2012 or 2013 smartphone. It's like saying cars existed in ancient Egypt because they had horses and
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As I said above, they are improvements. Every thing you say is an improvement- low power, multi-core, touchscreen sensitivity, tiny GPS receiver. Notice all those adjectives? Then you go and say that everything you just listed already existed. You said "invented." Stop fumbling about and just admit you used the wrong word.
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Invented, no. Improved, yes.
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In the past, the driving force behind technology was war. These days it is the quarterly profit report. There's a lot of technology behind both efforts. The former focuses on dominatiing the enemy, the latter on selling items fast. Choose your poison.
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- Advanced carbon fiber manufacturing making wind power very close to an honest to goodness viable power source (I'm talking free market style...give it a few more years)
- Better batteries that enable a normal looking and driving car to go over 200 miles on a 1 hour charge
- Process improvements making 24" LCD screens viable for less than $200
- The whole semiconductor industry making tech so freaking cheap
- Probable observation of the Higgs Boson
- Possible observation of dark matt
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advanced stock trading algorithms allowing 1000 point market jumps and drops within milliseconds (I kid, I kid)
I haven't seen the 1000 point jumps up yet, just the jumps down.
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Because what most people still want is that feeling of communicating with other people, of being in the attention span of someone else: "Listen to me, for I am important and have this to say!" Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Slashdot, it's all about the people at the other end of the technology, and not the tech itself.
The actual tech underneath is at its most amazing when it's completely invisible. So one huge growth industry has been in shrinking existing technology. It may only be evolutionary revisions
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(That's a poor version of a quote I heard once that'd I'd love to attribute to the source, who I can't find at the moment)
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Planning on replacing my home phone with (Score:2, Interesting)
a Home phone.
Marketing genius. E.T. phone home.
Hey homes did you get a new Home phone? Yeah but I left it at home.
Oh nice, a new mobile app (Score:2)
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You mean home.
User = Product (Score:2)
Re:User = Product (Score:5, Funny)
Dull and covered in hair and dead skin?
TFA (Score:5, Informative)
This article is just one big press release.
From the “Home” screen, users can swipe left and right to access the user’s News Feed (now renamed “Cover Feed”). Users can comment and Like images, which are blown up to the size of the screen. Videos won’t be shown, group posts won’t show up, and there won’t be any ads—at least at first. Swiping the screen down brings up the app drawer (Android apps, said a Facebook product manager who asked not to be named) instead of apps designed to run atop the Facebook platform.
WHy is Facebook doing this? Why do they do anything?
What is their profit center?
Your data. This is just a ploy to gather data about users - and it wouldn't surprise me if this app is using the GPS/Maps part of Android to get your movements.
FB's makes their money spying on people and sharing data with marketers,
Keep that in mind. They are a marketer's wet dream.
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No, Google are like the greasy loser that fucks your sister.
Facebook are like the greasy loser that sells your sister for crack.
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Facebook created an ecosystem that companies like Facebook could use to push their brands.
Just like Google.
Which is the whole point. The mobile operators want a second source of something like Android so that they can push back against Apple safely.
The mobile operators realised that Skype is Microsoft's big plan to shaft them. They will allow it in on mobiles Microsoft agrees they control whilst Microsoft will get control via people's desktops in any case. Once that happens the mobile operators will be fucked since Microsoft will control their revenue.
Some of the operators (like AT&T) are so stupid t
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WHy is Facebook doing this? Why do they do anything?
Money
What is their profit center?
Advertising and selling any personal details which you agree to in clicking through those annoying EULAS.
Android to get your movements.
Yes, but you need to ask yourself how that could possibly be useful to them. Answer: more advertising. Eg: if the App knows your a block from Walmart and they can stream you an instantaneous Ad for Walmart special on Cheezypoofs (they know from your purchase history on Facebook Credit Card/Gift Card that you buy cheezy poofs -- again, you clicked the EULA) Walmart will put more money into that Ad
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no, *I* won't... but then I'm not the problem, its the millions of "ordinary" people who will, unfortunately I end up with only 1 choice of cheezypoofs as that's all they'll end up stocking thanks to my fellow idiot humans :(
I'll truly give up when facebook starts to sponsor education (or TV, which is much the same difference for many people).
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I would just like to add to your analysis that by controlling your phone, they can use it to figure out even those details that you did not properly enter in your Facebook profile. If your phone is not moving from 8pm to 8am at a certain address, they can calculate that your home address is now the place you were, and "helpfully" update your info. Or tell the world that you are on a business trip and not at home. Or even figure out by where your phone is during the day where you work, and reveal to the worl
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just like your hero google?
Who in their right mind is going to buy this (Score:1)
Aside from the FB employees, who really wants Facebook to track his own phone calls 24x7x365..because have no doubt, they will be tracking everything through this shit
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The FBI employees.
E.T. (Score:1)
FB phone home!
There better be choices (Score:1)
I sure hope the phones that are oriented around this app are clearly marked as such. I don't want my smartphone experience to be centered around Facebook, especially when I don't even have an account.
I find this really disturbing:
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Well, at least 'til phone providers catch on that it's not really a feature, you may rest assured that this will be heavily advertised. At least I hope so.
Sub-process (Score:3)
...Home essentially is a custom start screen for your Android phone, replacing the home screen with one centered on Facebook....
So everything you run on the Facebook phone-Home device is a sub-process of Facebook's snooping program. Zucky must be beside himself with all the extra data that will be collected on the Facebook sheeple.
I use FB less and less... (Score:3)
Is that all? (Score:1)
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Why would they need to do a new OS, when they can just take over Google's one? It could be quite amusing if future Android phones end up sending more people to Facebook services than Google services.
And there will be a phones with this built in. They're working with HTC on the first one. So you either buy a phone with it on, or download it if you already have an Android phone.
Hopefully the CyanogenMod team will get on board!! (Score:2)
I know we'll all hate it on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
But I bet my sister installs this onto her phone the first hour it's available to her.
Power Drain (Score:2)
I uninstalled the Facebook app when I found its background service responsible for 10% of my battery life. I only ever want to use it to upload a picture or two (upload via https://m.facebook.com/ [facebook.com] on Android browsers has been broken for a while).
I'm wondering if they've improved this at all with this Home work. In the mantime, does anybody here know of a way to specifically or generally turn off such a background process? If I kill it, it comes right back.
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A long time ago it was broken on my WM6.5 phone; there's somewhere on Facebook's site that you can get an email address that's linked to your account. You can then just email pictures to that address and it'll post up on FB. Easy peasy.
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ah, I'd forgotten about that - works great, thanks!
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Titanium Backup might be able to freeze it; I haven't given Titanium a try yet, but I've seen it recommended for various CPU-eating apps/services quite a few times.
So basically a custom launcher (Score:5, Insightful)
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Meh (Score:2)
It's a Facebook app for those who treat Facebook more like crackbook. Who care's? There are thousands of different android phones out there, this one just happens to have one particular app ingrained as a theme. This phone isn't going to hurt anyone and it will benefit those who live their lives through that particular corporations product.
Might I suggest the much more usable and robust CAT [techcrunch.com] themed smartphone instead? At least that phone should survive any drunken friends or small children that happen to get
Geez, two snitches at once... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than having a phone that's designed to spill everything I do to Google, I get a phone designed to spill everything I do to both Google AND Facebook. Geez, loverly.
if you want this phone... (Score:2, Funny)
...I probably already hate you
Facebook Metro UI (Score:1)
Can't block a thing on it (Score:1)
Being "illegal" to root ones device you send everything to third parties
you have no business knowing who, and nothing you can do about it.
You can opt out but that's at the desecration of the third party, only those
living in California USA can write and request where there private info has gone.
ADaway or any other ad blocking application can't be found as it's against Google Play TOS.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/03/13/breaking-google-has-begun-purging-ad-blocking-apps-from-the-play-store/ [androidpolice.com]
Android 4.2.X a
Points out the lack of GFX support. (Score:1)
Hardware vendors are missing the boat by forgetting that good hardware can make work for 50X as many software folk as hardware folk. Closed hardware specifications do not help....
Some early versions of Android have no support for multiple cores yet MP hardware was available. Many Samsung phones lack full support of the graphics hardware. Without acceleration they were quick enough so sh
*claps* Bravo, Facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
That is impressive. Very, very impressive.
Not the software - that sounds mediocre at best.
But the business plan is genius. Without having to create their own OS, they can Borg-ify the majority of existing Android phones out there. By creating their own launcher, they can bury Google features completely, if they so chose to - redirecting most ad-related Android traffic away from Google, and over to Facebook. At the same time, the small group of users who use Google+, who have likely been using the Android app as well, will (I'm guessing) find it much, much easier to post directly to Facebook.
I can't stand Facebook - and the above sounds horrifying. But I'd put money on this being their strategy.
The young genius at it again (Score:2)
http://www.techspot.com/news/52148-zuckerbergs-first-website-contained-an-early-facebook-prototype.html [techspot.com]
How Long Until Preinstalled? (Score:2)
How long until Verizon Wireless decides to pre-install this on all their phones and lock it in. They already force me to keep a bunch of apps on my phone (including Facebook's app but also including ones like NFL Mobile) which I have no interest in using. I can't remove these apps without unlocking my phone which is "illegal" now. It's not like I'd leave them if they let me remove these apps. After all, they have me locked into a contract and are, quite frankly, the best carrier in my area. I might eve
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Honestly, it bothers me, but not enough to switch. Like I said, Verizon Wireless has the best coverage where I live. We also have no land line and don't want to wind up in a dead zone when we need to call 911. (We actually did have to call 911 a week after we ditched our land line. The cell phone 911 call worked perfectly.)
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For my money... (Score:1)
I fail to see the appeal (Score:2)
A home phone that phones home? Somehow I have this hunch that I can do without. And not just 'cause I don't have a FB account.
Shameless rip-off of Windows Phone (Score:1)
More crapware (Score:1)
I spend far too much time uninstalling/deleting/nuking from orbit all the crapware that comes pre-installed on a new computer. Why on FSM's green-ish earth would I BUY a device that uses crapware as the main selling point?
They can't even 'upgrade' their Android app without breaking functionality. That's just the kind of stability I want on my cell phone. ~sarcasm~.
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YAWN
Perzactly. I couldn't be less interested if I were dead.
Well, that's not quite true.
When I get an Android tablet or phone I will be highly focused on seeing Facebook is not a component anywhere on it.