The first update for Facebook Home is finally out, most of which are bug fixes and maintenance updates but also a Google Play update to Facebook for Android.
But that’s not all – in the coming months, there will be a couple of new features for Facebook home such as a ‘Dash Bar’ buddy list which will enable you to begin chats, improvements made to the Dock so as to access your favorite apps in a better fashion as well as an improved ‘new user experience’ onboarding flow.
Despite offering a preview of these new features, no information was provided as to when the Dash Bar, NUX and Dock will be released in future updates.
The same goes for the positioning of ads in Facebook Home, and the VP of mobile engineering, Cory Ondreyjka, believes it will take some time for this to be incorporated into the aesthetic of Home.
It should be noted that Facebook Home has now reached 1 million downloads while users who download Home tend to spend 25% more time on Facebook as a result. This by itself indicates the success of Home for mobile users.
And there’s more – using Home has increased the number of Likes and comments overall while the number of people who use chat has gone up by 7%. The number of messages sent has also increased by 10% too.
As for the issues that users have with personalization, Facebook will address these in the coming months as well with new features that will prevent the loss of their widgets, app dock and folders or even make it easier to start a Chat Heads conversation.
Most of all, the confusion surrounding the disappearance of the Android app launcher for some users will also be addressed.