Facebook Home passes 500,000 installations on Google Play one week after launch

Facebook’s new Home Android launcher has passed the 500,000 download mark on the Google Play store after a little over a week in the wild, though it continues to accumulate mostly negative reviews and has sunk to an average rating of 2.2.

The milestone was noted by Benedict Evans on Twitter.

Facebook first released the software in the US on April 12 before rolling it out to international users on the 16th. 500,000 downloads is a modest start for Facebook, which has a global user base of over a billion, but the app’s audience is limited since only a few Android devices are supported at this time. By comparison, the main Facebook app on Android has between 100 million and 500 million downloads.

As another point of reference, Instagram brought in 1 million downloads in just 24 hours when it arrived on Android last April.

Facebook Home received an unusually large number of one-star reviews shortly after launch, and that trend has continued. At the time of publishing, 5,617 of the total 10,905 reviews (52%) were one-star ratings.

Google Play doesn’t provide exact data on individual app installations, but a Google cache of the Facebook Home listing from April 19 shows the number of installs at 100,000 to 500,000. Currently, the app is listed in the 500,000 to 1 million range.

Image credit: Facebook

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Facebook 6.0 For IPhone: Everything You Need To Know

Android users are probably playing with the newly launched Facebook Home for Android users, but iOS users are not left out of a new Facebook update. There are a few interesting new features that make the Facebook experience on the iPhone fresh. Chatting and sharing are made easier and more livelier with a few additions and if you are an avid fan of sharing photos on Facebook, there’s something for you too.

Some of the features are useful, while the other new features make it fun. Here are 8 new features you are getting with the latest Facebook app update, Facebook 6.0.

1. Chat Heads

You can now chat to your Facebook friends within the Facebook app by swiping from left to right. When you start chatting with them, you’ll notice this new feature called Chat Heads which are these circles with your contact’s profile picture.

You can open multiple Chat Heads when chatting to many friends, tapping on it will open up the chat with that particular person.

These Chat Heads stay visible as you use the app. The cool thing is that you can tap and drag them around so it does not get in the way with tapping the Like button on your news feed. When you’ve finished chatting, all you have to do is drag the Chat Head to the lower part of your display to close it.

2. Send Stickers

Some messaging apps on smartphones have stickers which are like giant emoticons. Now Facebook has them too! You can access it by tapping on the Smiley icon on the text field. Your normal keyboard will then be replaced with these large emoticons.

To go back to your keyboard, tap on the Smiley icon on the text field again.

You can also download more stickers at the sticker store. Go to the store by tapping on thebasket icon at the bottom, and download the stickers you want to use.

3. Make Free Calls

You can also make free calls over Wi-Fi now to your Facebook friends who have the Facebook app installed on their smartphone. All you have to do is tap on the information icon when you start chatting with them and then press the Free Call button.

If some of your friends have the free Call button disabled, they have to first update the Facebook app on their device to the latest version. Also, Facebook free calls only supports voice (no video yet) at the moment.

4. Send Voice Message

Besides sharing photos with your Facebook friends via Facebook Message, you can also record your voice and send them short voice messages. All you have to do is tap on the Plus icon and then tap on Record Voice.

Tap and hold the record button while speaking; release your finger once you’re done. The short clip will then be sent to the other person to hear. Kind of reminds you of a walktie-talkie, doesn’t it?

5. Share Post To FB Pages, Groups, Message

Previously, sharing posts through the Facebook app only allowed you to share it to your own Facebook timeline. The updated app now allows you to share it to places other than your own timeline. All you have to do is tap on the Share button below a post on your news feed.

You get two options: Edit and Share the post or message it to a friend.

If you tap on ‘On your own timeline’, you can see the other options available i.e. share to yourfriend’s timeline, to a Facebook group you’re in or to a Facebook page that you manage.

6. Separate Feeds For Categories

Taking its cue from the desktop Facebook’s latest news feed design, the iPhone app also featuresdifferent feeds/categories you can opt to display. This can be feeds of groups you’re in or special groups of friends with a common theme, say the school you went to or friends from the same location.

7. Photo Filters In Messaging Section

There are also some editing features in the photos that you send to your Facebook friends. After choosing a picture, you are able to crop, brighten and choose from a few filters to add to your picture. This means you won’t have to download so many photo-editing apps for your iPhone if you are content with the limited features they have.

8 "Shared Photos" Album

After sharing photos with a friend, all your photos will be saved into a special Shared Photosalbum. This lets both of you easily track photos that have been sent. To access this, just tap on the information icon when chatting with someone.

Sources : facebook,hongkiat.com,cnet.

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