The Facebook Phone: History of a Phone That Never Was

Is there a Facebook Phone? AllThingsD roiled the Internet by saying Facebook is working on a specific phone hardware project, but the publication's revelation was damped down by saying that the supposed phone could be 18 months away. That puts "project Buffy" in the status of skunkworks brainstorming rather than a definite product that's coming to market.
Facebook's move towards its own version of Android comes after a long string of "Facebook Phones," though. Here's a quick rundown of the Facebook Phone story so far, including a hint at why Facebook may want to keep the potential of its own hardware in its pocket.
January 2008: We review our first Facebook mobile client, Facebook for BlackBerry. RIM's BlackBerrys have done a good job of Facebook integration, adding Facebook into its contact books and messaging clients. Since then we've seen Facebook apps for all the major smartphone operating systems.
September 19, 2010: TechCrunch claims "Facebook is building a phone" where "it controls the operating system." No such product has yet appeared more than a year later.
October 2010: Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 OS integrates Facebook as its core social networking system.
February 9, 2011: We take a look at two of INQ's "Facebook Phones," the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q. "We want all INQ phones to deliver a very pure Facebook experience," an INQ exec says. "We work closely with their designers."
February 15, 2011: HTC announces two global phones with dedicated Facebook buttons, the Salsa and the ChaCha. At the launch event, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says, "A lot has been made about a single Facebook phone, but this year you can expect to see dozens of phones with much deeper social integration than anything that you've seen so far."
July 2011: The HTC Status, the U.S. version of the ChaCha, comes out with AT&T. In our full review we praise the Facebook integration, but describe the phone as underpowered (especially because of the super-low-res screen.)
September 2011: Maybe "Facebook phone" hardware hasn't been working out that well for INQ. The company made its suite of special Facebook widgets public for all Android phones. In our review, we say INQ's Facebook news feed is the best we've seen so far.
November 2011: Motorola comes out with its first phone with a dedicated Facebook button, the Motokey Social. This phone doesn't have a U.S. release date yet, but it shows that HTC doesn't have an exclusive on that magical Facebook-logo button.
November 22, 2011: The new version of Android, 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" comes out. Google and Facebook refuse to integrate their contact lists on Android phones because of a spat over whose APIs to use; instead, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ all get better integration.
So where does that leave the new "Facebook phone?" TechCrunch and AllThingsD may both be right: Facebook may have had a proposal for its own customized version of Android on the back burner for more than a year now. Putting Facebook in every phone would be a better deal for the social network than just having one special Facebook phone. But there's a good reason for Facebook to have this project on tap, just in case.
Facebook has spent the year pursuing the idea of getting Facebook into as many phones as possible, but the mobile world is one of frenemies: platform providers, OEMs and carriers are always shaking one hand while holding a knife in the other. If Google decides to push Google+ on Android to the exclusion of Facebook, Facebook better damn well have a strategy. Project "Buffy"—whether or not it ever comes to fruition—shows that Facebook is a company that lives in the complicated real world, where alliances can turn sour in a moment.
But in any case, it won't become a phone you can buy soon.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396750,00.asp