Top 5 Upcoming Gadgets 2012 – 3.
For a few months the rumors of a Facebook branded smartphone has been running around the internet. Major news agencies have stated they knew of the Facebook phone officially launching in mid 2013. These statements were made based on information that Facebook has hired former Apple and Palm OS employees for its joint venture with HTC. Samsung snatching the Google Nexus program out from under HTC’s nose for the second and third gen models has been the motivating factor in propelling the Taiwanese company into Facebook’s loving embrace, so the insiders claim. Unlike existing Facebook enabled handsets, such as HTC’s own ChaCha and Salsa, the new Facebook phone will have a platform exclusive to Facebook and include all the functionality currently enjoyed on the desktop version. When wondering what operating system we may see on the new social smartphone, it could be a combination of WebOS and Android like features, but given HTC’s involvement and Android’s open source background, a modified and skinned version of Android is logical. HTC obviously has a track record with Android, and Facebook already has an Android app, but it could also be a new or heavily customized platform which Facebook would control in its entirety.
