Some first looks at Facebook Home | CNN Business

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Facebook’s new Home Android app isn’t scheduled to launch until Friday, but the internet is getting some early hits.

First up is the quirky new Facebook Home ad, which was released over the weekend. The ad shows a man boarding a plane while simultaneously scrolling through the latest updates on his Facebook home phone. Each upgrade comes to life around her, with some gentlemen in sunscreen stowed away in the overhead compartments, drag queen Shangela emerging from the service cart, a chocolate-covered nephew blocking the aisle and a couple of cats making their way to first class, where to belong

The ad doesn’t really share any detailed information about the product, other than pushing the concept that its larger images and lock screen placement make Facebook so immersive that you might experience vivid hallucinations in public.

For those interested in a closer look, the smartphone skin and app launcher made an early, if short-lived, debut on Monday, when a pre-release version leaked on line The MoDaCo tech site has successfully installed a version of the Facebook Home app.

The biggest revelation was that the app worked on more Android devices than Facebook has officially named, including Google’s Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 7 tablet. However, the build wasn’t fully operational, it had some bugs and it lacked the Chat Heads feature, which bundles messages from multiple services into one tool.

The app has since been disabled on Facebook’s side, it said Paul O’Brien of MoDaCo.

A few publications got a more official preview of Facebook Home last week when they got some hands-on time with the HTC First smartphone.

The HTC First is the first phone to come with Facebook Home pre-installed. Impressions were mixed: The Verge called Chat Heads’ execution “smart,” Engadget thought it was fast enough for target users without power, Wired said it’s still “not fully polished,” and Gizmodo said it looked responsive.

Facebook Home was introduced on Thursday. The app will add additional Facebook features to the Android mobile operating system, replacing a smartphone’s lock screen with a slideshow of news updates and placing Facebook apps and shortcuts to post updates, share photos and check location prominently on the home screen.

The app will be available on the Google Play Store for select Android smartphones and comes pre-installed on the HTC First starting Friday.