[NewsPoster]

Some Facebook employees are being ordered to switch from using an iPhone to an Android smartphone, for the sake of the social network's development, according to a report. Chief product officer Chris Cox has apparently told members from his team to change their mobile devices, in order for the team to go through what the social network users interact with on a daily basis for themselves and in theory helping to improve related services.

"I am mandating a switch of a whole bunch of my team over to Android, just because people, when left up to their own devices, will often prefer an iPhone," Wired reports Cox as saying during a media briefing. The switch to other platforms is so that team members "can be reporting bugs and living in the same experience that most Facebook users experience today," including users in emerging markets using typically cheaper handsets when compared to iOS devices.

The smartphone change is not the only case of "eating its own dogfood" Facebook undertakes. On "2G Tuesday," employees arriving at work opening up their apps see a message asking if they want the app to operate as if it is running on a slow 2G connection instead of typical Wi-Fi or LTE speeds. If accepted, the employee's app then simulates running on the constrained connection, as if it were a device in an emerging market, but after the hour is up, the app returns to full speed.

[pairof9s]

Anyone smart enough to own an iPhone is usually smart enough to not spend a lot of time on Facebook these days.

[mojkarma]

Smart enough to own an iPhone?????? Obviously not smart enough to understand what the text above is all about.

[climacs]

"I am mandating a switch of a whole bunch of my team over to Android, just because people, when left up to their own devices, will often prefer an iPhone"... then he goes on to say most people who use Facebook on a mobile device are using Android. So I think what he left out was the adjective "Intelligent". As in, "...intelligent people, when left up to their own devices, will often prefer an iPhone."

[Mr. Strat]

The Facebook mobile app sucks on both platforms.

[coffeetime]

Translation: we are cutting cost. Use cheap-a** phone please.

[jdonahoe]

I would hope that Facebook is providing the cheap a** android phones to those employees and I mean cheap, cause we're talking emerging markets. They need to get the complete feel.

[Makosuke]

This is kind of clickbait, when what it really is is basic dogfooding, which I'd expect of a good developer. It has nothing inherently to do with which platform is better, just what Facebook users are using.

Being smart, wealthy developers, there's a good chance most of them use iPhones. Because they're generally the best you can buy, so why wouldn't they. But a LOT of Facebook users, for whatever reason, are on Android, so if all the devs are using iPhones they're not going to be annoyed by bugs or whatnot. Assuming, say, 50% of Facebook users are on Android, I'd want my devs using it too.

It's the same with forcing devs to suffer through 2G--sure, it's great to live in an area where you get 50M LTE service or gigabit wifi everywhere, but a lot of people aren't so lucky, and if you don't really get what that feels like, you're not going to be inclined to code around the limitations of extreme bandwidth limits.

When doing web dev I make sure to test in browsers I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole--old versions of IE, crusty ancient Firefox builds, etc, because I want my site to fail gracefully rather than just plain fail for those stuck on whatever. And I test with extreme bandwidth limits, because some people will in fact be using it that way.

Doesn't mean I hate Safari or fast internet, just means I want to feel what it's like for the less-well-equipped.

[coffeetime]

"eating its own dogfood" ?
Do you mean the 99¢ Facebook phone that no one wants?
Android is from Google as I understand.

[mgpalma]

They can 'mandate' whatever they like, provided they pay for it. If I was employed at the draconian organization, I'd keep that droid in my desk. They can't force me to use their crap outside the office.

[pairof9s]

I think I understand fully what the text above is about...certainly enough to know that when 70-80% of the worldwide market will use some variation of Android, that you want to test extensively on it in the "wild". It's not a stupid move on Facebook's part.

It's just stupid to think that today's iPhone users spend much time on Facebook...there a too many other features and alternative social outlets used by that market these days. The article attests to Facebook's conclusions of the same.

[climacs]

I suppose there are statistics to show FB app usage by iPhone users vs Android. I find it peculiar that someone would assert iPhone users don't spend much time on FB as compared to Android users. Most of my teen nieces and nephews have iPhones - virtually all of them when I come to think of it - and they spend quite a bit of time on social media, not just FB but certainly there as well. I understand what Cox is getting at - the vast majority of mobile users are on Android devices, so it makes sense to focus efforts first on optimizing FB mobile app for Android. I just found his phrasing interesting... I think he meant to say "*people like us* would choose iPhone, left to our own devices."