Facebook phone vs the iPhone 5 and Android phones? - popherald.com

May 28th, 2012, 1:43 P.M.â€"Ahead of the rumored iPhone 5 release date and Samsung Galaxy S3′s June launch, the old Facebook phone has been resurrected from the grave, courtesy of a reliable news source, New York Times. 

Imagine a small city with retail shops, but the good news, the city is growing rapidly, so more retail shops flock every year. Inside the city, you’ll find retail shops named Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and the new retail store in the house, Windows Phone. The fictional story goesâ€"Android is the biggest retail store because it offers more designer clothes. But before the rise of this popular clothing store, it was known for its grocery shops (Because Google is popular due to its search engine).

Meanwhile, the iPhone is the high-end, fashion chain with expensive clothes but offers similar products with limited designs, and BlackBerry was the former retail king, but with old designs and customers are not into its products anymore.

Then suddenly, a food chain has decided to sell its own clothing line in the city. Bizarre, but quite interesting because the food chain is so popular, but known by many because serves tasty meals. This food chain will now offer clothes to compete with other retail stores. The end of the fictional storyâ€"Imagine this food chain is Facebook, the social networking giant.

This week, tech sites speculate and are currently predicting the future of mobile, and the possibility of Facebook’s intervention. Meet the resurrected Facebook phone courtesy of credible news source, The New York Times.

The news website reported on Sunday that the social networking mammoth is currently planning to launch its own smartphone, a device that will compete against Apple’s iPhone, and might boost the market share of Android (if Facebook will fork Google’s mobile operating system).

According to the report, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) “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,” quoting sources who requested anonymity. It sounds really weird, but it is possible. Here’s why:

New York Times is claiming that Facebook is focusing more on mobile, because the company is aware of the fact that the smartphone market share is growing, and it is growing fast. With no hardware, Facebook will rely on others’ mobile operating systems to sell its product, like Facebook for Android, Facebook for iPhone, Facebook for Windows Phone, and more.

The scary part of the story, for Facebook, is the fact that these companies can, will, and has already introduced their own social networking sites, Google Plus just to name one. Plus, mobile has its own homegrown social networking sites, Instagram for example, or Pinterest and Path to scare Facebook more.

Making a phone is Facebook’s way to secure its market share and its money, says the report, and to attract more investors by adding a new revenue stream, a cash flow.

The Facebook phone, currently called “Buffy” by Facebook employees, will secure the future of the tech company, because according to the newspaper’s source, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and co-founder, “is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms.”

This year, more phones will join the lucrative world of smartphones, like Apple’s next iPhone, the rumored iPhone 5. Other devices from Samsung, Motorola, HTC and LG are also coming to the smartphone town, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, the HTC One X, and the next Nexus phone by Google. Can Facebook’s mobile phone compete with these devices?