An interesting scoop over at the New York Times, citing "people close to the company" as saying that Facebook is looking to launch its own smartphone by next year, apparently tapping the collective talent of Apple's former hardware and software engineers.
The social networking giant has already poached a bunch of engineers who worked on the iPhone and iPad projects. It's Facebook's third attempt at making a phone, one that'll undoubtedly add to bad blood that's been brewing between Facebook and Apple for quite some time now.
That said, a Facebook phone makes sense to us. The company pretty much sucks in mobile. Up until recently, they've been releasing and updating native applications for smartphones at a snail's pace. If a phone is what they need to gain more credibility in mobile, so be it - though Tim Cook won't like this.
This not-so-secret plan might also explain why a system-wide Facebook integration was a no-go in iOS 5, though code hooks are still in place. Let's also not forget that Facebook pulled integration from Apple's Ping social network for iTunes music.
Yup, looks like Apple can safely put Facebook on its growing list of powerful rivals, right below Google and of course Samsung...
