Facebook Reportedly Working on Homescreen Feature, Not a Phone

In just 3 days Facebook will reveal its “new home on Android”, as we previously reported. There have been numerous reports that this event will be about a new Facebook phone but The Wall Street Journal has something completely different to say. According to the paper, this event will focus more on a new app and not an individual Android phone.

Facebook’s event will be more about its new app that will bring your news feed onto the homescreen of your Android devices. This means that you can easily see what your friends are sharing without even having to launch the app.

The Social Networking giant will first show of this new feature running on HTC devices, though other OEMs will be able to include this new feature in their devices as well. The new homescreen tweak will require a little bit of modding on the Android system to allow Facebook to have control over the homescreen.

The main goal of this new feature is to give Facebook users an easier and simpler way to spend more time on the network (like they aren’t already) without even launching the app. This would definitely benefit the social network by increasing its mobile usage and bringing in more green via ads.

This new app or system tweak by Facebook could also explain why the Social giant urged its employees to make the switch to Android devices. The new feature will not replace the Android system instead it will only make it much more Facebook friendly. It’s different from what Amazon did with Android on their Kindle Fire tablets.

Although, this new feature sounds more like a new widget for the service that will permanently stay on the homescreen. Almost all Android devices have widgets that let the users view their feed on the homescreen, but something that’s worth an event should be better than what we already have, right?

I personally think that the new homescreen feature for Facebook is only appealing to hardcore users of the service, I like my homescreen clean and simple.  (read: Stock Vanilla)

Do you think the new Facebook homescreen feature would be of any use? Or would you just prefer a completely new Android Skin by the company? Let us know.