At last!
Rumours about an official Facebook phone have been brewing for months but now British social mobile maker INQ has announced a couple of handsets designed for young, hip and happening Facebook-ers, backed by the social network itself.
The two Android Froyo devices called the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q will hit the shelves of The Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy in the UK from April- The Cloud Q is due to launch in Q3..
The firm said they are built for Facebook fans "who use Facebook as their primary means of communication; they deliver a fully live Facebook experience built around INQ's Visual Media Feed."
It is probably fair to say that both phones are more about functionality than hardware features and are designed to be affordable offerings targeted at social networking-mad teens and people in their early 20s.
Rumours of an official Facebook Phone have been circulating for months and Facebook has previously denied building its own phone, but INQ has said the two devices are the result of a ‘close collaboration' with the social network and the two handsets feature all the new apps for Facebook on mobile.
"The new apps leave behind the mobile paradigm of text based status updates and deliver a rich media feed to the homescreen," said INQ.
This really is one for Facebook fans. The homescreen is a visual Facebook feed for clicking through friends' updates, pictures, videos and web pages and there are one-touch links to Facebook Chat, Friends, Messages, Wall and Notifications.
Facebook has made a big deal out of Facebook Places and Places Deals in recent times and consequently users of INQ's handsets can ‘check-in' to venues from the home screen. Facebook Events fully integrates with the Google Calendar and the default music player is Spotify on both devices.
INQ were behind the Skypephone 3 years back and claimed to have started the ‘social mobiles' category. Frank Meehan, INQ's CEO, said: "Facebook has evolved from a social network to become an incredibly powerful global communications platform. Speed and simplicity of access to things you love is our DNA, so our next step is to make it even easier for people to experience the richness of Facebook - all from the homescreen."
Interestingly, Facebook had a comment on the press release, demonstrating its level of involvement in the Facebook Phone project. Henri Moissinac, head of mobile business for Facebook said the two handsets "demonstrate the power of socially aware devices."
He added: "INQ has built an innovative and easy to use set of features that enable people to use common Facebook interactions such as viewing photos and videos, chat, message, and check-in to their favorite businesses all from the home screen."
