There has been a lot of conjecture about a Facebook phone, yet we still don’t know what it utterly looks like. However, a new device from INQ, a London-based phone maker, dubbed INQ Cloud Touch, shows a possibilities of a Facebook phone, something we wrote about final year.
For a past week, we have been regulating a phone, that takes a impulse from a initial chronicle of a iPhone. It is tough to tell that this large featherweight smartphone is formed on Google’s Android handling system. Your first, and many of a important, interactions on a phone are with Facebook services, yet there is zero preventing we from regulating a Android applications.
Google, Android Facebook: Oh My!
The phone, that is GSM/WCDMA, is means to work opposite a world and we tested it on a T-Mobile USA network. There were frequency any forsaken calls and a call peculiarity was flattering plain – we am guessing that it is interjection to both a radio engineering and a network. Given how delayed a 3G networks are in a US, we motionless to use Wi-Fi as my primary Internet tie on this device, that was ideal when regulating some of my favorite Android OS apps such as Amazon Kindle, Nimbuzz, Evernote and Dropbox. You can entrance a Google Apps’ marketplace only as fast as we can sign-in to your Google account, and we can entrance several Google services including Google Voice like we would on any normal Android device. However, this phone is for Facebook lovers.
So, let’s speak about a Facebook experience. After booting adult a phone, we come to a acquire shade and all we need to do is enter your Facebook login. The phone populates your residence book (you do need to name what kind of syncing we wish to do) and logs we into Facebook’s messaging and other services.
Single Sign-On Rocks
The singular sign-on removes a need for we to divided sign-in for any Android app – and there is a ton of those — that uses Facebook Connect. As an finish customer, this singular sign-on is going to make a phone inherently useful. You can check-in to places from a home screen, we can send messages from a home screen, and we can use your calendar from a home screen. One click entrance to a camera allows we to upload photos directly to Facebook photos.
They are all shown as apart apps, leveraging a new consumer function of regulating dedicated apps for specific functions. we would disagree that if we are a Facebook addict, afterwards we flattering many don’t have to leave a home screen.
It seems INQ got entrance to an extended/new Facebook Mobile API, that allows it to do some extraordinary things with a Facebook data. INQ’s phone has borrowed a visible feed embellishment from apps like Flipboard and now allows we to directly see elements such as YouTube videos and photos right on a home screen. After regulating a Facebook visible feed for 6 days, we find a web-version of Facebook officious dowdy, delayed and well, not fun.
Facebook + Spotify + Android = Fun
As someone who has hearing entrance to Spotify, we have entirely enjoyed a formation of Spotify, Facebook and this phone. So if Shak (Spotify’s super evangelist) shares a strain with me on Facebook, we can now click on a couple and it plays in a Spotify app, that incidentally is entirely integrated into a INQ phone. What does that meant for you? Fewer clicks and your home shade becomes a launch pad for your Facebook life as many apps are now cross-linked with any other.
However, here’s a app that is going to blow your mind: a People App. Think of your friends as featured on always updating ball card. INQ says they got Facebook to extend their amicable graph API and afterwards are regulating behind-the-scenes necromancy to advise tip 5/10/20 friends we correlate many with.
This is a ideal approach for one to conduct a crony round and get absolved of some of a sound in your amicable graph. we am dependant and we wish this underline on a desktop app.
The association orator explained that all a Facebook services are formed off APIs and Facebook for Android App, since when FB updates their app, a association can take advantage of it right away.
What do we think?
There is a lot to like about INQ Cloud Touch – from a wrapping to all a accessories and even set-up text are tip notch, colorful, and are ripping with energy. The phone itself is light and a hold shade is really responsive.
However, a device during times felt underpowered and sluggish, mostly since it was doing too many things during a same time on a trifling processor (Qualcomm 7227 chipset, 600MHz) singular onboard memory (4 MB).
I found it ran out of energy after a few hours – between 3 and 4 – when we incited on Wi-Fi and was regulating a Spotify use in tandem with other mobile apps. The Facebook app kept crashing on a exam device, that during times soured me on a experience.
The toughest plea for me privately was that we found a home shade a tad too busy. There are only too many calls to action, that are kind of discordant to a knowledge we get on an iPhone. we gamble folks who are half my age are going to have no such problems and substantially would conclude busyness.
That said, it stands out in a sea of Android phones that are tough to heed and if we adore Facebook and wish to live inside a amicable network, this is a intelligent phone for you.
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Related calm from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):
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