This is pretty separate from a UI redesign. This is a new application and then an integration with the existing Facebook app. I'd say there isn't grouching about the 'redesign' so much as 'Where the eff is my Android?'. I think perhaps there has to be a barrier of some sort between the phone and the user for a Facebook 'phone/home' to really work, but there is so much of a barrier that there is literally no dialer immediately available to you. There IS however direct integration with the Facebook Messenger, which I think is how they want you to interact with contacts... sooo... yeah. I don't think the grouching is similar to when the timeline stuff happened, etc.

"I'd say there isn't grouching about the 'redesign' so much as 'Where the eff is my Android?'."

People shouldn't be asking that; they're installing a launcher. Do people ask that when they install LauncherPro? I thought people generally understood that Facebook Home adds new Android-level UI features rather than just being a normal app that is launched from the app drawer?

First of all, many cellphone users don't change launchers.

The ones that do understand that launcher and lockscreen are different.

Facebook Home replaces both, and remove some major aspects of the Android UI that most launcher/lockscreen replacements DON'T change: things like getting rid of the notifications bar, changing the lock screen slider, changing the way that you get to apps

It's a very different imagination of how to use your phone. I'm not at all surprised that many people don't understand it and/or don't like it.

How about this... try installing it and then come back and we'll have a discussion about it. I'm a 'power user' by far, far far, but I am pretty good about picking up on barriers to even normal users. They went too far with their 'integration'. This isn't a launcher so much as Facebook deeming to allow you to access your phone applications.

I've installed both the pre-release leak and the one released today on my Nexus 7. Try being less of a condescending "power user" and then we could have a discussion.

Wasn't pushing the power user part to say 'Oh ho ho, I'm qualified to talk here'. I was simply adding it as a caveat that I'm not a 'normal' consumer of these kinds of things.

Given that you have installed it you then saw how much it differs from the traditional android idea of a 'launcher'. It genuinely is hiding it all away. You can see the pathway that Facebook wants to push the users, essentially fully hiding the idea of having on phone contacts and messaging. That's why it's not really a launcher so much as Facebook allowing you access to your phone (IMHO).

lol trying to pull rank on HN on a Friday afternoon... too aggressive.

That would be a valid point if it was a redesign of the facebook app - you can't say that here though, because it's not a redesign of an existing "Facebook Home" app, it's a completely new product.

But how many of the 1-star reviewers actually understand that?

How many reviewers understand that this is a tool that they have never used before? All of them, I would imagine.

This is one thing I recall Marcos Moulitsas saying every time DailyKos underwent a redesign. His rule of thumb was no matter what, 1/3rd of the community is going to hate the redesign.

That probably isn't THE rule but I think there is a real phenomenon here that hasn't yet been articulated in its clearest form.

Very true. While people's concerns might be warranted in this case (too early to tell), the most vocal people are the ones who have the most to complain about. It's the Amazon and Yelp 1 star/5 star problem (in this case.. 1 star).