Although there was talk in the past about the possible launch of a smartphone produced by Facebook, it seems that only now there are serious plans to produce a competitive smart phone. Those from Facebook they hired over 6 engineers who worked on the development of the iPhone and one who worked on the development of the iPad tablet and it seems that they will succeed in producing a competitive smartphone. One of the engineers who worked on the development of the iPhone talked to Mark Zuckerberg about the development of a smartphone and says that he was extremely interested in finding out details about how such a device works and is produced.
The company has already hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, the employees and those briefed on the plans said. One engineer who formerly worked at Apple and worked on the iPhone said he met with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, who then peppered him with questions about the inner workings of smartphones. It didn't sound like idle intellectual curiosity, the engineer said; Mr. Zuckerberg asked about intricate details, including the types of chips used, he said. Another former Apple hardware engineer was recruited by a Facebook executive and was told about the company's hardware explorations.
It was rumored that Facebook could produce a high-end smartphone together with HTC, for now there is no solid evidence to support these claims, but the intentions are as clear as possible. Zuckerberg would be extremely interested in producing a Facebook smartphone to offer users more than applications for accessing the social network, but it remains to be seen what the final product will look like. Of course, such a smartphone would most likely run Android OS, but the hiring of people who worked at Apple shows that Facebook wants to produce a good quality device.
We should find out what will be chosen from this project next year, when the Facebook smartphone will hit the market.
