New Facebook And HTC Smartphone Reportedly Coming In 2013

We've heard rumors which claim a new Android smartphone from Facebook and HTC is on the way, but today Bloomberg is reporting a mid-2013 window for the phone's arrival. Apparently, the original plan was to release the phone sometime before the sun sets on 2012, but with HTC wanting to work on different projects, this new Facebook phone has now been pushed back to mid-2013. This also gives Facebook more time to develope its modified operating system for the new phone, sources close to the project have said.

There's just one tiny problem: neither Facebook nor HTC have confirmed that this phone actually exists. We wouldn't be surprised one bit to find out that it does, however – after all, more and more people are accessing Facebook through their smartphones, and releasing a phone that's centered around the social networking service would make it easier for Facebook to monetize its mobile efforts. Facebook and HTC want to keep this project secret for at least a little while longer, apparently, so the truth is that we won't know if the phone is real until one of those companies choose to comment on the currently-circulating rumors.

Hearing that Facebook and HTC may be working together to bring us a new phone brings back some bad memories of the HTC ChaCha and the HTC Salsa. Both of those devices were marketed as Facebook phones, and even though there wasn't anything especially terrible about them, they both crashed and burned after launch. We're sure Facebook and HTC both remember those bombs just as well as we do, so if there is in fact a new Facebook phone in the works, you can bet that HTC and Facebook are thinking of everything they can do to avoid a repeat. Stay tuned.