Back in April there was an overseas report in DigiTimes that
suggested Facebook and HTC were developing a “customized smartphone” that would
launch sometime “in the third quarter of 2012 at the earliest.” Then a month
later the New York Times echoed the same partnership, but stated Facebook would
launch their own smartphone in 2013, plus hired over 12 software and hardware
engineers from Apple.
Today, it’s Bloomberg that has hopped on the Facebook/HTC
train and declared their “people with knowledge of the matter” say we’ll see a
joint smartphone be released “as soon as mid-2013.” The report also reiterated
the same inclusion of former Apple employees, but this time brought a few names
forward: Greg Novick, Tim Omernick and Chris Tremblay and Scott Goodson – all
people who helped design popular parts of the UI experience in the iPhone. In
addition to Apple employees, Facebook has reportedly hired a number of “key
staffers who worked on the Palm operating system for mobile phones.”
As for the OS that will power this rumoured Facebook phone,
Bloomberg notes that they “could use a modified version of Android for its
smartphone,” but there was no confirmation… Perhaps there’ll be a mix of
Android and webOS in the works, potentially called FBOS.
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