Facebook's workforce is ditching their iPhones for Android phones to better understand the Droiders (Photo : GettyImages)
Facebook is forcing its employees to ditch their iPhones for Android phones so they can understand and feel how most of the world is living with Android. The verdict was announced by Facebook's chief product officer, Chris Cox, on Thursday during a press conference at Menlo Park, California.
The decision no way means to favor Android phones over iPhone, but to let the Facebook employees measure the experience of Facebook users through the eyes of Android, which claims 80% of the global mobile market. According to Cox, the mandate had to be forced upon because the people would often "prefer an iPhone," Wired Reported.
The goal is to discover better ways connect more people to Facebook, especially those located in the emerging markets where cheaper Android phones rule the masses. Expensive iPhones are not easily affordable in countries like Indonesia, India and Pakistan, which for their highest populations bear more potential for Facebook's growth.
Android is a more dynamic platform than iOS, where standards for iPhone are inflexible, Android has high tolerance for a variety of screen sizes and other mobile specifications. However, this dynamicity comes at the cost of discrepancies which arise due to the differences in specs and Facebook will be able to fix those bugs much faster when Andriod issues are reported right at home.
This is the second Facebook experiment which instead of the users is targeting its own employees to emphasize with the way Facebook is used in developing countries. Recently, Facebook pulled the plug of high-speed internet connection on its workers to give them a dose of 2G experience. In contrast to iPhone-switch-to-Android experiment, the first one was at least optional.
Facebook has already clarified that there is no agenda to threat Apple's market and though Apple-crazy employees will hate to stay away from iPhones, the Droiders will not feel the hitch. Today Facebook boasts 1.5 billion users and as Android users alone constitute 1 billion; learning to live without iPhone seems like a fair experiment.
