HTC First: Facebook Home can be disabled for vanilla Android

Facebook Home isn’t quite as integral to the HTC First as previously thought, it has emerged, with the news that the custom skin-cum-app can be disabled and switched for stock Android.

Unveiled last week, the HTC First was loudly touted as the first-ever real ‘Facebook phone’ (presumably the distinctly unofficial INQ effort from a few years back doesn’t count).

The handset debuts the Facebook Home user interface that puts the social networking site front and centre on the First’s homescreen, with live updates, from Facebook news feed, as well as status updates, shares and pics, without having to unlock your device.

However, today it turns out that the phone isn’t quite as fulsomely Facebook-flavoured as Zuck’s press call might’ve suggested.

According to Phandroid, First buyers can turn off Facebook Home just by heading to the settings menu.

But instead of having to use HTC’s Sense proprietary interface, owners get to unadorned, stock version of Android that normally only shows up on Google Nexus devices.

The intriguing decision on HTC’s part, whose revamped version of Sense is much improved and less obtrusive, comes ahead of the First’s release on EE this summer.

Featuring a spec sheet that firmly marks it out as a mid-ranger, the First is home to a 4.3-inch 720p HD LCD display, a dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor and a five-megapixel rear-mounted camera.

Source:

Phandroid