Facebook Home passes 500K downloads since launch

The Facebook Home application has been downloaded over 500,000 times since being launched for Android on April 16.

The Facebook Home application has been downloaded over 500,000 times since being launched for Android on April 16.

The Facebook Home application intergrates features of the social networking site, such as likes, comments, messages and photos, into the phone's operating system. Essentially the app transforms the user's phone into a Facebook-centric device, providing a constant flow of information from the site to the phone without the need to access an application.

Home, which currently only comes pre-loaded on the HTC First smartphone, was launched on Google Play on April 12 in the US only and then rolled out around the world from April 16, though it requires Android 4.0 or 'Ice Cream Sandwich' to run.

Since launch the application has now been downloaded over 500,000 times, a fact which, according to reports, was first spotted by tech analyst Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans), who tweeted the news on April 22.

While this number of downloads is undoubtedly impressive, and moves the app into the coveted 500K - one million downloads category on Google Play, it does pale in comparison to apps such as Instagram, which Techcrunch reported back in 2012 gained over one million new users in a single day after being launched on Android -- though it should be noted that many tech fans were already familiar with exactly how the photo sharing and effects app worked before its Android launch due to its long running popularity on iOS.