Facebook Home Passes 500K Downloads, Gets Mixed Reviews

Benedict Evans was the first to notice yesterday that Facehook Home had crossed the 500,000 download threshold on Google Play. That’s in the ten days since April 12, when it was released.

I’d say that’s a decent, if not stellar, number given that Home is only available for select Android devices: Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Note II, HTC One X and HTC One X+.

What’s perhaps more interesting than the download numbers are the user reviews and comments. The app has a very mixed-to-negative rating overall:

Below is a semi-representative sampling of some of the comments:

“I tried it, liked it, but it’s not for me. I not a fb junkie like that, my wife would love it. But she has a iPhone.”

“It was fine for a facebook addict. But seems to run through alot of data and battery. Uninstalled.”

“It was cool at first but needs some tweaking to be more user friendly.”

“Its just exactly what I want. A simple, smooth, bubbly kind of home launcher. Dont need widgets.. but I would love to see folders in the future, and maybe custom short cuts on the lock screen.”

“As a stand alone launcher it’s a 2 at best. But as a notification system and lock screen its awesome. Love the floating heads messaging and pop up notifications”

“It’s like having a live wallpaper Facebook feed. Getting to apps is not a problem either, just a touch away.”

“I bought my HTC because of its sense, now Facebook wants to invade my phone and destroy my beloved HTC sense ! I will never let that happen”

“This is a cool concept. Facebook as a launcher not so good. If this were just the lock screen or wake up screen and you could use it just like that and then swipe over to get to your launcher it would be much more productive.”

There’s a wealth of feedback for Facebook in the more than 11,000 comments, some of which are highly specific and suggest improvements or new features. Undoubtedly, Facebook will be reviewing these comments and others it receives directly, making changes and improvements.

The company said that it would push out new releases on a monthly basis as it responds to user feedback.