Facebook Learned Lesson from Android's Home Software

Taking a page from the “you can't succeed until you fail” mantra, Facebook FB has publicly spoken about valuable lessons it learned following the April debut of its Home software for Android devices.

AllthingsD reported that Facebook's mobile engineering VP Cory Ondrejka has “learned a lot from the experience – knowledge that is going into both improving Home and into developing other mobile products.”

Facebook Home was designed to act as a replacement for an Android user's existing home screen. The app allows users to easily views and post content on Facebook without the need to scroll to a Facebook app. Facebook Home was released on April 12, 2013 on a limited selection of Android devices from HTC and Samsung SSNLF, including HTC First, which was pre-loaded with the software.

The app received fairly negative reviews, prompting Facebook to release a series of updates to improve the user experience. As a result, plans to have Home pre-installed on other devices have been put on hold.

Ondrejka noted that the Facebook Home experience has helped the company better develop Android software and that the company now has a keen understanding of the kinds of products it can create going forward.

Facebook has focused recent efforts on its core app and complimentary apps such as Facebook Messenger, Camera and Poke.