After the successful announcement of Facebook Home for Android, the Menlo Park-based social networking giant is apparently in talks with Apple and Microsoft to bring the software to iOS and Windows Phone.
Facebooks’s director of product, Adam Mosseri, spoke with Bloomberg today about these talks. “We’ve shown them what we’ve built and we’re just in an ongoing conversation,” he said, making sure no one thinks anything is a done deal.
With iOS running on about 21 percent of the installed handset base out there, according to research firm Gartner, Inc., Facebook could capture even more users–and more passionate users–with a move to Apple’s mobile operating system. iOS already has strong ties to Facebook, with integrated posting to the social network built right in to iOS 6.
Of course, any such software would need to be build according to Apple’s preference. “It may or may not be Home,” said Mosseri. “We could also just bring some of the design values to the iOS app. That might be how it ends up. Or we could build just the lock screen. Maybe then it’s not called Home, it’s called something else.”
The Android version of Home is designed for newer Android powered devices, but is also available on some older devices currently in the wild. It promises to place a new layer on top of Google’s operating system, so Facebook users can interact with the social network right when they turn on their devices.
It would be out of character for Apple to allow this sort of co-opting of their own iOS, but having a Facbook Home app on iPhone isn’t an outrageous suggestion. Facebook is a huge part of many of our lives, and having similar features across different mobile app ecosystems seems like a good idea for both Facebook and the mobile device makers.
Source: Bloomberg
