Facebook Home Suffers From Major Backlash

It has been more than 72 hours since Facebook officially released its Home app launcher to the Google Play store, and it doesn’t look good.

Facebook Home, which has been touted as an environment “that puts your friends at the heart of your phone”, has been hit was a bunch of harsh criticism from the Android community. As of yesterday, the app has received an average rating of 2.4 out of 5, with the majority being one star rating, in the Google Play store. Some of the criticisms of Facebook Home’s launcher include a clunky experience, no support for widgets, lack of customization, lack of password protection.

What brings more confusion the negativity is the availability of the app. As of right now, Facebook Home is limited to selected devices operating in the US (although reports are saying that the app is able to be installed on other devices by side-loading the app).

Even though it sounds like the reviews are manipulated in some fashion, it is noted that the app has to be downloaded and installed from the Google Play store to be able to review the app; which means that the reviews are legitimate. Users that have side-loaded the app are unable to review the app.

In addition to the release of Facebook Home, HTC and AT&T released the first actual Facebook phone, named the HTC First, with  Facebook Home pre-installed. As of right now, reviews are mixed with the device, with many saying that the phone are for those who are wildly enthusiastic with Facebook (and with the recent reports about the company and it demographics, it does not look good).

This just comes after reports saying that the Facebook app on Android is monitoring you app’s usage, raising serious issues about the company’s app development.

Hopefully, the company will eliminate the issues people are reporting and raise the average rating.