Daring Fireball: David Pogue on Facebook Home

David Pogue:

And there’s a more troubling question: Why?

The Facebook apps for both iPhone and Android are outstanding. They’re full-featured, beautifully designed, extremely popular. What does Home add, really? Yes, the ability to see incoming posts on your Home screen; you save one tap. But is it worth losing widgets, wallpaper, app folders and the Android status bar in the process?

Then there’s the weird new phone that comes with Home preinstalled — the HTC First. What’s the deal with this phone? It’s plastic, dull, uninteresting. It’s so generic, it should come in a plain white box that says PHONE on it.

From a practical standpoint, it seems very weird to me not to be able to check your battery life from the home screen.