The Facebook phone rumors weren’t true, but INQ has rolled out two new Facebook-oriented Android devices: The Cloud Touch and the Cloud Q. The new mobile phones are built for people who use Facebook as their primary communications tool.
Facebook collaborated with INQ on the devices, which feature new mobile apps for Facebook. INQ said the apps leave behind the mobile paradigm of text-based status updates to deliver rich media feeds to the home screen.
“The INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q bring Facebook to people with a single touch while they are mobile and demonstrate the power of socially aware devices,” said Henri Moissinac, head of mobile business for Facebook. “INQ has built an innovative and easy-to-use set of features that enable people to use common Facebook interactions such as viewing photos and videos, chat, message and check in to their favorite businesses, all from the home screen.”
PC-to-Mobile Transition
Here’s how it works: The home screen serves as a visual Facebook feed for clicking through friends’ updates, pictures, videos and web pages. There are one-touch links to Facebook Chat, Friends, Messages, Wall and Notifications.
Facebook Single Sign On is activated across the phones and people can check in to their favorite shops, restaurants and clubs with Facebook Places, also active on the home screen. Facebook Events integrates with the Google Calendar on both devices.
The first smartphones to use the Facebook social-graph API, the default music player on the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q is Spotify. All Spotify features are available to subscribers through a dedicated Spotify key.
“If you are a heavy Facebook user and a heavy mobile user, this is a very tight integrated experience, and these are definitely phones that you are going to be interested in,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner. “It underscores how social-networking…