Nick Tippmann
This article is based on theories in which I’ve presented to people before certain sites took what was an idea and called it their own. I’m basing a couple of the features/products within based on speculation and possible rumors in which have happened in the past and ones we’ll surely hear in the close future when it comes to the Mythical Facebook Phone…
Operating System:
I believe it’ll be a forked version of Blackberry OS. Reason for this and not the rumored Android which we’ve seen Facebook use in the past. Or like how Amazon did with the Kindle is a couple of reasons… RIM is about to be sold, the only company that makes sense in buying the OS is Facebook. It’s dying and no company not even Nokia could rescue it.
So with Facebook buying the OS from RIM in which RIM will sell parts off, it’s this lets Facebook have its own OS like iOS with Apple. This will allow them to not have to hear it’s a forked Version of Android but it’s own like Amazon has to deal with.
Facebook wants to be Google Part II and no way could they do this if their phone is theoretically a Google powered phone just layered different.
Maker:
We’ll see Facebook buy a company in trouble. While buying RIMM completely makes some sense, there are pieces of the company that doesn’t. Like the enterprise part. However, a struggling company may be primed for such a buyout. Before you say Motorola Google will be keeping it to compete with Apple on a true pure Android phone. HTC is also out as the cost will be to high even if they keep going down. Look for a small to mid Chinese company here as Mark will see the struggles Apple has with being sold in China right now, he’ll want to prove he can do something Job never was able to successfully do while he was alive.
Screen Size:
I figure this’ll be around the 4.3 inch screen, if not a little bigger. Facebook wants to be a place where you share photos and videos and makes no sense to view at a small screen. Big and Beautiful will be mentioned during the announcement of the phone for it’s size and screen. I don’t see it going any bigger as they’ll want to market to both women and men and if you’ve seen Android phones, the larger they go, the more male driven the sales go as well.
We’ll also see a HD screen for the reasons stated above, they’ll want to show clean beautiful photos and why ruin it with a horrible screen to view it on?
Processors:
Two words… Quad-Core. This phone will be released mid 2013 so anything lower will just be looked upon as a joke and not up to specs even though by time of release Quad-Core may look upon as that. It’ll need to be a power-house in being able to handle graphics for the games, as well as being able to take true HD videos.
Buttons:
This one pure guess and not predicated on anything, but I believe we’ll see if have two main buttons, besides those on the side. If anyone has seen the Nissan Juke, where the AC is you’ll notice that depending on which menu you are in, AC/D-Mode those button change functions. I believe we’ll see something similar to that in the phone. Where as if you are in the main phone area, could be used for Phone/Menu. But if in a game/program it can be remaped via the program for specific “jobs”.
We’ll also see a Micro USB like we are seeing on Android phones now, possible MHL connection so able to easily hook it up to your TV via MHL to HDMI connection.
Browser:
This one will be Opera, as reported as a acquisition earlier in the week by us. Microsoft has Internet Explorer, Apple has Safari and Google has Chrome. Facebook needs its own and now it’ll have it in Opera. However that sale needs to get done before the price rises as it’s now being used as a all time high with the talks of a buyout has surfaced.
Search:
It’ll use Bing as Microsoft has invested heavily into Facebook and will try and do anything it can to make Bing relevant for consumers. If it doesn’t license Bing to Facebook, Facebook could look into buying it as Microsoft could be tired of how it keeps wasting millions upon millions into the search(Unlikely as a partnership will boost Bing users)
Camera:
Front and rear on this one. With having Skype on Facebook Messenger on the Web, it’ll want to bring it to the phones as well. This is where buying Instagram comes in. Minute you take a photo, you are given the chance to edit, than upload. No other reasons would Facebook buy them if they where not going to showcase them as one of the main features when they could just have a stock camera and people would be ok with it.
Gallery:
Lightbox was bought out from Google by Facebook and now we know why… The beautiful layout and presentation will be used as the gallery for all the photos and videos you take. As well as those Photo edits in which Instagram buyout was for.
Features:
Instant uploads to Facebook along with tagging your friends in photos without having to your self. Google has done this with Google+ in which give the ability because of the application to instantly upload phones you take to your Picasa album. What Facebook will do to “differ” from them is besides the fact it wont go into private but a public album, is the automatic tagging of your friends thanks to buying Face.com the facial recognition company. Facebook wants to connect you to your friends and this’ll do it so you don’t even have to any more
Instant Tagging at events… This one will work when multiple Facebook Phones are close and when one of your friends Checks-In to either a location or event. It’ll than recognize other “FB Phones” around in which the user is a friend and tag them in it for you without you having to, creepy I know but it’ll be a feature it’ll push as it’s “Connecting you with your friends so you don’t have to.” In all actuality, it’s both stalkerish if say you are at a concert and you have “friends” you really don’t care for when it tags you with them, or makes your life easier so you don’t have to go through your list of friends to tag them with you. Either way, If Facebook doesn’t do this, you can sure as hell bet another company will so deal with it.
Applications will be completely changed on Facebook.com because of this phone. Because Applications drive users now, making them easy to find on mobile will be key, as well as Syncing them from your device to your profile/web. When you allow an Application to be “installed/run” on your phone, it’ll sync to your profile on the web for you to play as well. The applications will also sync so everything your plant on the phone on Farmville will do the same online as well.
Launch:
We’ll see the phone announce at F8 next year… We’ll see leaks like we always do but don’t be shocked if we actually see nothing as we’ve seen Mark be able to keep other things under wraps.
Anyways, what you have here is what more than likely if we ever see a Facebook Phone what It’ll look like and come with. Feel free to disagree, but I’ve already called things about this phone to happen before anything was even close to.
