Facebook Phone in the Works, Again

After Facebook recently went public and CEO Mark Zuckerberg married his long-time girlfriend in a backyard affair that surprised his 100 guests and the rest of the world, another Facebook-related bit of news has cropped up: the social network of all social networks is planning to build a smart phone. The New York Times reports that Facebook has tapped into the skills of software and hardware engineers who once worked for Apple. A Facebook employee has disclosed Zuckerberg’s plans on making a mobile phone for Facebook, as well as the CEO’s anxieties about Facebook possibly ending up as another app in the future, if the company does not devise its very own smartphone.

Several Attempts

This isn’t the first time, however, that Facebook has tried its hand at producing a smartphone. The New York Times reports that this is actually the third attempt by Facebook at devising its own mobile phone. It was in 2010 that initial rumors about a possible Facebook phone began circulating, published over at a TechCrunch blog. The project was shelved soon afterwards, after the shift proved too challenging for the company at the time. Last year the AllThingsD website published report about a partnership by Facebook and HTC, the focus of which was to devise a smartphone. This very recent effort by Facebook points to Facebook’s renewed commitment to the project, as Zuckerberg is seen hiring former Apple professionals who have helped devise the iPhone and the iPad.

Facebook has remained mum about the revived mobile-phone-building rumors, neither confirming nor denying anything. The company is playing it safe, saying simply that it is “currently working with OS providers, application developers and operators within the mobile industry”. This statement, first shared with AllThingsD the previous year, was re-echoed by the company presently.

CEO Zuckerberg, however, has conversed extensively with one of the former engineers of Apple, says the New York Times over at their blog. And Facebook has already done the recruiting too, mostly for engineers with substantial iPhone experience.

source : NYT