AllThingsD is reporting that the long rumored Facebook phone is "finally real" and its code name is "Buffy", taken from the wildly popular television vampire slayer.
"Facebook has tapped Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC to build a smartphone that has the social network integrated at the core of its being," AllThingsD reported.
"The phone is planned to run on a modified version of Android that Facebook has tweaked heavily to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications, according to sources familiar with the project."
Buffy the iPhone slayer is still some 12 to 18 months away from hitting the market, according to the report. Facebook chose HTC as a hardware partner only recently after looking at Korea’s Samsung as another possible collaborator on the handset.
Rumors of Facebook secretly developing a mobile phone last surfaced in a report by Business Insider back in September of 2010. That rumor came to a crashing halt when Facebook spokesperson Jaime Schopflin released an official statement to Mashable, publicly denying the report.
"Buffy has been an ongoing area of concern at the social networking giant for the past two years," AllThingsD wrote, "These days, the project is led by Facebook CTO Bret Taylor, several sources said."
Does planet Earth really need a Facebook phone? Probably as much as we need a smartphone spawned by Amazon. Since the iPhone launched in 2007, it has totally flipped the mobile industry upside down, inspiring a long list of copycats while proving to be a game changer for both mobile hardware and software.
Since Google entered into the mobile phone business, it has been busy rewriting some of the rules itself with its Android operating system. It's now becoming more apparent that Amazon and Facebook intend to challenge the status quo with their own competitive offerings designed to attract a fiercely loyal customer base that's already intact.
Will little "Buffy" grow up to become a true iPhone slayer or just suck critical market share away from other Android devices? It appears Facebook may be ready to answer that question by finally putting their formidable stake in the game. Obvious pun intended.
[via AllThingsD]
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