Facebook Home- First impressions

Facebook recently announced its latest and arguably biggest mobile initiative in the form of Facebook Home. I had a chance to install the service on a Galaxy S3 Android handset and here are my first impressionsWhat is Facebook Home?Facebook Home is an Android launcher which replaced the traditional Android home screen with a Facebook view of things- full screen images from feeds, instant ability to like and comment on posts, faster and simpler ways to use Facebook Messenger and so on. Facebook Home is a launcher app that can be downloaded for free on the Google Play store.[gallery ids="1074,1073,1072,1071,1070"]Facebook Home is available only on certain Android devices - HTC One X, HTC One X+, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and HTC First. Of these devices, HTC First is a launch device for the service and it comes customized with the best Facebook Home experience. Interestingly, Facebook Home is currently not available for Google Nexus 4. Facebook Home is not available on iOS and it is unlikely that it will ever be given how tightly Apple controls its user experience.Getting StartedGetting Facebook Home is pretty simple. The app is available on the Google Play store[download link]. You download it and install it on your Android phone. If you are not familiar with Android launchers, they are basically tricked out/customized Android user experiences. Facebook Home is Facebook's launcher on Android- tricked out with all Facebook services. Once installed, the app will give you a brief overview of the key gestures for interacting with it. The only other prerequisite beyond having one of the said Android devices is that the Facebook app be installed on the phone.The UpsideUnlike many other Android launchers which are either packed or have too many customization options, the Facebook Home launcher is incredibly simple to setup and I was up and running in a matter of minutes. The interface is pretty clean and utilitarian.When good quality images are being shared in your feed, the screen is an engaging and pretty experience. Wonderful personal images flash by with a simple gesture of double tap to Like these images. A single tap brings up the circular profile image of you. Click on this circle brings up three options - Facebook Messenger, Facebook App and other applications.When the Facebook app is selected, you are taken to the full form Facebook Android app. This is no different than selecting the Facebook app on your Android device today.When the Applications icon is selected, the traditional Android Applications view is not what you see. Instead you see a set of app screens that can be swiped from left to right. The first screen shows basic apps like Phone, Internet, Play Store and such. The left most screen shows all the Android apps installed on the device. Folders cannot be created in this app view. You can load up on as many screens as you want (atleast I could add 4-5 additional screens worth of apps) but I had no option to create folders.The Facebook Messenger has been thought out much more differently with the concept of Chatheads. Chatheads is a cool new way of interacting with Facebook friends in real time. Even when out of the Home interface, Chatheads of folks you are currently engaged via Messenger is hovering around.The DownsideHere is why I have no plans of having Facebook Home on my Android phone.1. It takes over my phone experience and I have no easy access to my usual apps. Everything is a minimum of an additional click.2. Access to my Notifications drop down is no longer a simple swipe down. This is by far the biggest drawback. It is as if Facebook wanted to purge away all the basic Android experience in favor of its view of the phone experience.3. Lousy photographs appear stretched and well, lousy on a full screen. Not everyone I know or every person I follow takes good pictures. And this shows as stretched full screen renditions on my device. Thanks, but no thanks.4. If you don't have a cluttered feed, very old posts show up eventually.5. Hyperlinks to YouTube and other websites show up awkwardly. Having gotten used to the preview box for YouTube videos and thumbnails for articles, it feels weird seeing bit.ly links as is on a large 4.8 inch screen.6. No widgets. If you are an Android widget lover with widgets for anything from weather to Evernote to Spotify to what not, you lose all of it with the Facebook Home launcher enabled. This is a big loss. I use widgets extensively and without them, every action with the phone takes that much longer.7. Very Facebook centric. I list this as an issue because its my phone and there are a lot of things I do with it beyond looking at pictures of friends and liking pictures or exchanging messages. The Home interface makes it harder to do the simplest things one uses their phone for.8. Ads are coming. In Zuckerberg's own words, ads are coming at some point to Facebook Home. If I have paid $199 for my device on contract and pay another $1700 over a period of two years for voice and data service, the last thing I want to be doing is look at ads on my home screen. And voluntarily so.Facebook Home on iOSFacebook announced a new version of its app for iOS. This app brings the Chatheads feature and stickers to iOS6. It also has minor design changes within the Facebook app. More details on this update can be found here. There are rumors that Facebook is talking to Apple on bringing Facebook Home to iOS. I consider this a highly unlikely event. Apple is doing well with its minimalist aesthetic and clutter free design. With Jony Ive driving things now, it will only get cleaner. Adding an extra layer on top not to mention opening up the APIs for such a feature would not be like Apple to do. I have been surprised before but I still think this is unlikely. I do expect the smart engineers to bring much of the Facebook Home functionality in some form or other to the iOS Facebook app over time.In ConclusionUnless your life revolves around Facebook, I do not see why you should install Facebook Home. It makes doing everything with your phone, just a wee bit harder. It potentially makes your device screen awkward to be seen in public. And for no good reason. I am a big user of Facebook and love the social networking features it offers. But I'd like to use it on my PC and as an app on my mobile devices. Not as something that takes over the home screen on my handset. Its just not worth it at this point.I do expect Facebook Home to get more functionality as time progresses. Facebook has promised monthly updates. So it is possible that some of the downsides I mentioned before are addressed soon. Until then, I will stick to my widget customized Android screen for daily use and an ever improving Facebook Android app for my Facebook fix.