Rumors that Facebook has been in talks with Apple and Microsoft about getting its new Home product on those operating systems prove at least slightly overblown.
According to Facebook, the company will be updating its iOS app to include the new Chat Heads messaging icons, but they’ll appear only within the Facebook app and won’t be persistent across iOS.
Facebook’s chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, and the company’s head of mobile, Cory Ondrejka, answered questions yesterday at the Wall Street Journal’s Dive Into Mobile conference. A recording of the conversation was broadcast on the All Things Digital website.
Ondrejka said that Facebook has to be realistic about what it can do within iOS, as the closed nature of the operating system differs wildly from Android.
“What’s different fundamentally between the two operating systems is with Android you can just go and do it. If you want something that has hooks in the operating system like on iOS, now you’re waiting on operating system revisions. So it’s just a much longer lead time,” Ondrejka said.
Ondrejka and Schroepfer also confirmed that Facebook has been talking with Microsoft to bring some verision of the Home experience to Windows Phone 8.
Schroepfer said the new version of the iOS app, which brings with it the Chat Heads feature, has already been approved and will be available in the App Store sometime this week.
