Android Launchers Are A Small Market, Can Facebook Home Change That?

Facebook is getting into the “Android launcher” market, the company has confirmed, thanks to its new Facebook Home application announced today. The app, as?previously reported, is new software that integrates the Facebook experience deeply into the Android operating system. But Android launchers today aren’t a very large market, relative to the reach Facebook has in mind. Will the Facebook brand be able to change that? Facebook already has an incredible presence on mobile. It’s the?most-used application on your phone. And of?Facebook’s more than 1 billion active users, 680 million are active on mobile.?It only makes sense for Facebook to build something that takes better advantage of this major shift in computing by putting its service front and center in people’s everyday lives. But compared with the enormity of Facebook, the Android launcher market is much smaller. According to Google Play data, Go Launcher EX,?the top free Android launcher, has somewhere between 50 million to 100 million installs worldwide. But that includes users who are installing it on multiple devices, or again and again as they change phones. According to app-store analytics firm Distimo, the launcher has actually only been installed on 6 million unique devices in the U.S. since mid-August 2012. Facebook Home To Join The “Android Launcher” Market Launchers are mobile applications popular among Android users that allow you to further customize the look, feel and functionality of the native Android experience, replacing the user interface experience that ships with your phone. They allow you to do things like install themes, customize icon skins, change the way you navigate between screens or access the application drawer, for example, and much more. Some have 3D effects, others include their own widgets, and some offer a variety of widgets, themes and other add-ons for download or sale separately. But the one thing they have had in common is that they’ve generally appealed to a more advanced, more technically inclined crowd that likes to tweak and customize their devices. They appeal to those who feel confined by the locked-down experience on iOS and want more control. This is the competitive market that Facebook Home is joining, and Facebook’s Launcher, though beautifully designed, is an entirely different experience from the launchers available today.?Although like the others, Home is about changing the default Android interface, it differs in that it changes it to one of Facebook’s liking, while other launchers are about offering users

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