Surprise no one is calling out TC on their BS, yet again.
Lets face it, TC is a tech tabloid and HN's fascination with TC (majority story makes FP) is akin to teenager's fascination with celebrity gossip magazine.
No substance, nothing insightful, just pure unadulterated BS. And HN is all over it, every-time.
Facebook has zero incentive to confirm the rumor, and tons of incentive to deny it. I'm not saying I think the rumor is true (actually, I don't care), but you can't call BS just because Facebook has denied it.
I'm very confused about the hatred. TC has a very very good track record.
It's the only credible source of leaks that I pay attention to. They're actually on the pulse of the tech industry, unlike say Wired or Gizmodo or whatever, that don't really report anything original of worth.
> They're actually on the pulse of the tech industry, unlike say Wired or Gizmodo or whatever, that don't really report anything original of worth.
I think you mean "startup news" (which is open to debate). AFA actual "Tech news" is concerned they regurgitate whatever link they stumbled upon on their RSS feed and rewrite the whole thing often without bothering to even cite original source.
It boggles my mind that anyone would even consider TC "pulse of tech industry".
"...no one actually thinks Facebook is building an ACTUAL phone, or that it's manufacturing anything.
What people are saying is that Facebook is doing some major work with Android software to make it a Facebook-flavored platform, so Facebook could have much more control over the mobile industry than it does today. This is probably being done entirely inside Facebook, without any help from Google, which is the enemy.
And I don't see any denial of that in Facebook's statement -- just that the company admitting that Facebook is "integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems," which is the story in the first place."
So yeah, seems plausible that the PR spokesperson was just putting up interference.
I made a similar comment in the thread on the TC article, but Facebook did that last year. My Motorola Droid didn't have Facebook branding, but it was fully integrated with Facebook (even if it lacked a decent way to browse Facebook.)
Hard to say whether Apple (and the other companies mentioned below) were lying or not. You could imagine that Apple was not working on X at the time but later decided to work on X. And no, some individual engineer tinkering away in the corner inside the company without any support is not the same thing as the company working on X.
I'm pretty sure Jobs was quoted at some point shooting down the idea of an Apple phone, but it's nearly impossible to Google for that amid the Antennagate results.
I can't find any explicit denials by Apple, though. Digging through some 2005-2006 news archives, I find Apple denying some specific rumors, but neither confirming nor denying whether they would come out with a phone in general.
They (Apple) were actually working on a phone in 2005 which they announced in September of that year - the first "iPhone" before the iPhone - http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/rokr/. Of course, that turned out to be a crapfest noone was happy about and Jobs couldn't help wincing even while presenting it.
Exploring and investigating are much different than building + launching a phone. This could be in early prototype/exploratory phases at Facebook. That doesn't mean they will go ahead and launch it to the public by any means.
However if Facebook perceive Google as their biggest competitor it would make sense for them to explore ways to have more control over how Android users access their services.
If Android does become the dominant smartphone platform, controlled by Google, then it could be used as an effective weapon against Facebook - or a way for Google to (finally) launch a successful social service. Its logical for Facebook to try and mitigate this business risk.
It makes sense for FB to want to control the distribution channels, and given their size and the importance of mobile, doing a FB phone is a plausible strategy. Considering the games that go on with some manufacturers (Apple) and the various carriers, FB should be concerned about its weak hold on the mobile channel.
Whether that means FB branded phones, deals with carriers for preferred placement or access, or something else is hard to say.
Lets face it, TC is a tech tabloid and HN's fascination with TC (majority story makes FP) is akin to teenager's fascination with celebrity gossip magazine.
No substance, nothing insightful, just pure unadulterated BS. And HN is all over it, every-time.