Facebook Recruiting Former Apple iPhone Engineers for Facebook Phone

[narimonk]

I'm gonna take a shot and say that this is to beef up their iPhone app, and branch into other iPhone apps, not create a new phone. One of the biggest reasons their IPO is tanking is because investors are realizing that the mobile app is garbage. The majority of users are accessing on their phones, not computers. Look for a beefed up app in a month or two. Probably better integration with instagram.

 

[funnyent]

They can't even make a decent iOS app, I have no trust in this phone.

 

[foodle]

Everyone starts from somewhere. Apple had zero experience with making phones, antennas and retina displays. They hired all that talent.

They had some experience with antennas from WiFi in multiple generations of products. They had plenty of experience with LCD displays in compact form factors, and the actual display manufacturing has always been done by sub-contractors like Sharp, LG, and Samsung. Yes, the phone radio part was new, but the point is that that was one of the only new portions (along with the touch screen). They had tons of experience in high volume consumer electronics manufacturing, which Facebook does not.

There are a zillion places like Foxconn who will gladly take on manufacturing, materials, transportation, and import problems.

Yes, sub-contractors can do a lot for you, but they still need to be properly managed.

He likely would've had a typical CEO's overview of what kinds of chips were needed, and how much they were paying for them from what companies.

I'm not saying he knew every part number, pin count, and IC process geometry of every chip, but he did know what type of chips were in the phones.

 

[KieranDotW]

This makes about as much sense as Google making a phone. Oh, wait....

Google never made phones, they just bought Android's startup. But chances are this will be another android-based iPhone wannabe.

 

[DocStone]

Yep, correct, SJ he is not.

However, what he is is a young man w/ ambition and tons of cash at his disposal. This by no stretch makes him an instant winner.....but passion and resources are a dangerous combination at times.

He does want to be Steve. He wears the same thing all the time but he is a wanna be. Sounds like he is more like Gates and Microsoft 2.0. He is just trying to copy. Must move to Redmond for the transformation to be complete.

The fact that this guy has tons of cash makes him dangerous. I have known tons of folks who spend crazy money on one scheme after another trying to make it work. Time will tell.

 

[flyingacedude]

Could it not be that FB are just trying to improve on the FB app and taking on people who built the iPhone is the best way of building something really good? We all know mobile is what seems to be the future and FB really need to utalise the App and start making money from it.

Either way, despite what most of the people seem to say on this thread I hope they build a really good mobile OS and bring in some really useful innovative features which will help the whole industry progress.

They do already have an App ecosystem that could potentially work well on mobile and tie mobile in with desktop apps more effectively than iOS or Android.

Zuckerburg is a smart guy after all, I think there is more to suggest he will succeed than fail going on what we know about him.

 

[ardent73]

iAds - Follow the money

iAds is controlled by Apple, FB wants its own ad ecosystem, hence it wants to own the phone...

 

[nokuchikushi]

Google never made phones, they just bought Android's startup. But chances are this will be another android-based iPhone wannabe.

And what's a Nexus? Google has made phones, continues to make phones, and bought a hardware company (Motorola Mobility) so they could make more phones.

 

[BWhaler]

Here's a great conspiracy theory:

Maybe FaceBook makes their apps on Android and iOS suck so the FaceBook phone is well received.

I don't think it's true. I think they did they're best copying Twitter's UI and trying a hybrid native container/HTML5 approach which simply failed. Their apps suck despite their best efforts.

But they are a partner with Microsoft, and purposely making apps suck is out of Microsoft 1990's playbook.

 

[ownamac]

Seems like stock pump to me.

Maybe just an old rumor dusted off to negate this past week's blog post in WSJ that FB shares are really worth $13.80 a share (also referenced in this weekend's Barron's).

Rumor of a FB phone might overshadow the fact that ad revenues are diminishing as FB users migrate from desktop browsers to mobile devices where there is less screen real estate and thus fewer ads.

 

[AustinIllini]

Maybe FaceBook makes their apps on Android and iOS suck so the FaceBook phone is well received.

Seems unlikely. If the goal is to pull people over from Apple or Android, I would want to have a strong app and then say "AND with the FB phone you can integrate everything and it does more stuff".

 

[TallManNY]

Everyone starts from somewhere. Apple had zero experience with making phones, antennas and retina displays. They hired all that talent.

It's not an uncommon situation.

Sounds like you're mixing up Jobs with Woz.

Jobs had almost zero technical training or talent. He used others for those abilities.

He likely would've had a typical CEO's overview of what kinds of chips were needed, and how much they were paying for them from what companies.

I think you are under estimating what Jobs would have picked up during the decades that he ran a computer manufacturing company that often was manufacturing devices he had a large hand in designing. Also, even if you won't give me that Jobs knew then much more than Zuch know now about making a phone when he did it, you have to admit that the apple company has many more hardware savy folks than Facebook does. This will be a big stretch for a social media outfit even if they outsource everything they can think of.

----------

There's a big difference between buying an entire company or division of a company (like Google did with Android), and just hiring some guys who used to work on product X. And Apple also had decades of experience in hardware design before the iPhone, whereas FB has none. Apple understands manufacturers, materials suppliers, transportation, supply chain, import/export, etc. FB has zero experience in this kind of design.

And don't forget that Apple had done the kind of crucial step of having written an operating system before. Facebook will have to write an OS for their phone to really differentiate it. Good luck with that.

 

[kdarling]

I think you are under estimating what Jobs would have picked up during the decades that he ran a computer manufacturing company that often was manufacturing devices he had a large hand in designing.

Jobs never designed anything related to electronic circuits or chips... he didn't know how... and he didn't run the manufacturing.

Also, even if you won't give me that Jobs knew then much more than Zuch know now about making a phone when he did it, you have to admit that the apple company has many more hardware savy folks than Facebook does.

I never said otherwise. Apple obviously does have more experience. What I said was that FB can buy that experience, just as Apple has done at times.

This will be a big stretch for a social media outfit even if they outsource everything they can think of.

If they outsource it and stay out of the way, they'll be fine. If the social media bosses try to get involved in the details, it'll be a mistake.

That'd be like when Jobs wasted the original Mac team's time by forcing them to redesign a circuit board so the memory traces "looked prettier"... even though the engineers told him it would cause crosstalk and make the memory fail. Trying to micromanage things he did not understand is partly why Apple originally fired Jobs. Zuckerberg should take note.

 

[digizure]

Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!

Isn't FB an App?

FB is easily hacked into, what makes you think their phones would be any better?

This is retarded!

 

[Gata]

So let me get this straight.

Your primary product is a social network.

You make crappy apps for phones.

And now you want to make your own phone that supposedly has a better FB app than, say, the iPhone.

Good luck with that.

 

[twoodcc]

i don't think facebook needs a phone. what's wrong with just making great apps for facebook?

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

Hire Jon Rubinstein. He was at NeXT. He was instrumental in creating the original iPod. And he was instrumental in creating the WebOS, which is phenomenal even though it didn't take off. the WebOS still has a loyal following of developers and is now open source. He knows all: hardware, software development, synergy and cloud computing. Short of missing out on some apps, my HP Veer is a great replacement for the iPhone.

But that's the whole point...it's all about the apps and the ecosystem that a huge number of people are already vested in. To break into that market now is going to be extremely difficult. If it was 4 or 5 years ago, okay. But now? The barriers to entry in this market are substantial when even longtime players in this space such as MS, Nokia, and Rim have problems. Perhaps FB sees those companies' problems as an opportunity to move in, but to me they are signs at how strong both Apple and Android are.

 

[theelysium]

God they need too! FaceBook can't program out of a paper bag!

 

[moore2772]

Ego run amock

Maybe Zuk will then come up with a version of FB that will ONLY work on his own phones, leaving IOS and everyone else shut out. Does he seriously think that FB is so crucial to one's life that one would buy a proprietary phone just so one can use FB? That would be nuts. There would soon be a host of alternatives to FB and even Google+ would start looking pretty good.

 

[mentaluproar]

Go for world domination.

As soon as I read that, I thought...

Maybe Zuk will then come up with a version of FB that will ONLY work on his own phones, leaving IOS and everyone else shut out.

Bad idea. That would be all it takes to push people to google+. They can't force everyone over to a specific device for the sake of a website.

 

[\-V-/]

As soon as I read that, I thought...
Image


Bad idea. That would be all it takes to push people to google+. They can't force everyone over to a specific device for the sake of a website.

I know some people that would buy the phone for that very reason... very sad. :/

 

[gopnick]

This whole thing would make sense if anyone at Facebook had an eye for design.

They do not. Hiring off the people Apple is willing to let go without a substantial counter-offer isn't exactly the best way to get that talent, either.

 

[AustinIllini]

This whole thing would make sense if anyone at Facebook had an eye for design.

They do not. Hiring off the people Apple is willing to let go without a substantial counter-offer isn't exactly the best way to get that talent, either.

Unless Facebook has some buyout it hopes to achieve of some unknown startup company in the UI business, I don't see this going well. If they were really serious, wouldn't they have bought webOS when hp was trying to sell it?

 

[payers]

i don't think he thinks that, he's only trying to run a successful business. Just because he wants his company to make smartphones doesn't mean he is trying to be jobs.

wise point made..just like you don't see some above average lucky duck eskimo trying to be santa?

 

[nokuchikushi]

Why is it no one sees that - if there really is going to be a Facebook phone - that it will be a Window Mobile phone?