Ina Fried

Recent Posts by Ina Fried

HTC First: The Hardware Side to Facebook Home

While Facebook isn’t building its own phone exactly, it is creating all the tools a hardware maker needs to create such a device.

In addition to making Facebook Home available as a software download, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has crafted a set of tools for phone makers to include Home from the outset.

The company has a list of hardware makers and carriers already interested in doing such devices, including Samsung, Sony, Huawei and Alcatel One Touch.

As we reported more than a year ago, the first partner will be HTC, which is creating a phone to be sold with AT&T. HTC chief Peter Chou appeared onstage on Thursday to show off the aptly named HTC First, which will be the first device to carry Facebook Home as its default interface.

The phone, which will sell for $99.99 and go on sale April 12, will come in red, white, light blue and black. Preorders start today.

AT&T Mobility chief Ralph de la Vega said the HTC First is a canvas on which to show off what Facebook has done.

“It’s simple and it’s elegant,” de la Vega said.

RELATED POSTS:

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”