A new report says Facebook is working on a phone with HTC and on new Facebook apps with former Apple employees.
Rumors of a Facebook phone are alive and well, with the latest report claiming the social network giant will have its own handset ready for consumers sometime next year.
Along with a new smartphone, news regarding a new and much faster iPhone app has also come out, with the announcement that the app wont release this month, as we had first heard, but in coming months.
The rumored Facebook phone is not expected to land before mid-2013, according to the report. Though Facebook had hoped to release the phone as early as this year, in the end it gave the phone's manufacturer, HTC, time to to finish up other products.
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The phone, which is expected to run on a modified version of Android, is being developed to aid Facebook in its effort to tackle mobile, which Mark Zuckerberg called Facebook's biggest challenge earlier this month.
“Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social,” Facebook told Bloomberg in a statement. “We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”
But that isn't all the company is doing to overcome its mobile obstacle. The report also says the Menlo Park, Calif., company has brought along various former Apple employees to work on mobile for Facebook.
Former Apple employees Greg Novick, who helped develop the touch-screen user interface; Tim Omernick and Chris Tremblay, who worked on the device’s software; and Scott Goodson, who helped create the stock-market application, are among those now at Facebook. The social network company also brought in Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris after acquiring their company Push Pop Press. They helped build the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad software.
And along with former Apple employees, the report says Facebook also brought in several key people who had worked on webOS for Palm.
As for the release of the updated iPhone app, the report says Facebook will be coming out with an update that is supposed to speed up the app sometime in the next couple of months, but Facebook apparently won't stop there The report also says the social media giant will come out with a broader overhaul of the app in 2013.
