Now, Facebook launches its own phone

LONDON - The once-rumoured Facebook phone is all set to launch in the UK market.

The website first created for Harvard students in 2004 eventually became a vast global community with 500 million members.

Now, a British mobile phone maker has collaborated with the social networking site to launch the first ‘Facebook phone’, reports the Daily Mail.

London-based INQ Mobile on Thursday revealed two new Android smartphones for the UK market that are designed expressly for 18-28 year-old Facebook users - the INQ Cloud Touch and the INQ Cloud Q.

Up until now, Facebook has consistently denied that it was making a phone.

Now the company has come clean about its plans.

Working closely with the team behind Facebook, INQ has given the home screen a visual feed that lets users quickly access updates, pictures, videos, and other Facebook content.

The phones provide quick links to all the popular Facebook features, including chat, messages, wall postings and notifications.

Facebook messages and instant online chat facilities are what today’s generation now uses for communication.

“Writing on a (Facebook) wall is as easy as sending text messages,” said INQ’s co-founder Ken Johnstone.

“INQ has built an innovative and easy to use set of features that enable people to use common Facebook interactions such as viewing photos and videos, chat, message, and check-in to their favourite businesses all from the home screen,” said Henri Moissinac, head of mobile business for Facebook, in a statement.

Facebook Places is accessible directly from the home screen, giving people the ability to use the feature to check in at stores, restaurants, clubs, and other spots.

Facebook’s Events feature is also available to let people schedule events and sync them with Google Calendar.

And instead of requiring users to log onto each feature separately, the phones offer a single sign-on to access all of the Facebook features available, said INQ.

The Cloud Touch is powered by a Qualcomm 600MHz 7227 chipset and offers a 3.5-inch HGVA touch screen, 4MB of memory with an option to add more, and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera.

Also built into the phone are Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, GPS, an FM radio, an accelerometer, and a compass.

The cost of the phones has yet to be revealed but it is thought the price will be set low to attract teenagers.

INQ said the Cloud Touch would be on sale from April, with the Cloud Q launched in the third quarter. (ANI)