It was inevitable that the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 was going to be pitted against each other in several tests, such as which has the better performance, camera and battery. However, it seems the latter offers better support with one certain application, and that would be Facebook Home.

The reason for this is because the HTC One now comes with official Facebook Home support, whereas you have to take the risk to download FB Home for the S4. However, at least it’s nice to finally see the new user interface on both flagship handsets, even if you have to compromise with one of them.

Facebook Home has been available to download and install for a while now, and we have already heard reports that after installing the UI many of you had been uninstalling it shortly after, as they thought it was a pile of garbage.

Having already given it a try, I’d tend to agree because it just seems utterly pointless. It’s hard to understand whom Facebook Home appeals to, but from what some of our readers and friends have been saying, it’s not for a general users, so maybe just reporters and bloggers?

The uninstall rate does seem to be rather high, but were you one of them who felt Facebook Home was utter garbage? If you are still undecided but find that your handset is not supported, then you can still run FB Home on your handset via a sideload, but this does come with a warning, so you do so at your own risk.

Thanks to Android Central.

Apple made iOS 6.1 available for download earlier today, but don’t get too excited because the new features and fixes in the latest update are pretty poor to say the least. However, as a way to console those who are still having several issues with iOS there’s also a Facebook update for the iPhone app, complete with the new video features.

Facebook version 5.4 is not only for the iPhone but other devices running iOS 4.3 or higher. Looking at the new features we can safely say that Facebook wants you to say even more to your friends and family, which is why the new app now gives you the option to send a voice message. However, if you find that this is not enough then you can also record and then share your video, which can all be done direct from within the app. The Nearby tab has also seen a slight improvement making it even easier to share your favorite places.

Like the recent iOS update this new Facebook app does have one or two issues, one of which is not being able to send a free video message if you live outside the US or Canada. More details can be found on the iTunes website.

Over the years Google Maps was considered the most popular iOS app, but this has since been overtaken by Facebook, but would this have been the same if Apple Maps was never pre-loaded onto the iPhone 5?

Thankfully I’m married so never have the worry of finding a date or going over the top on Valentine’s Day in order to win the heart of that special someone you have had feelings for. However, there are millions of you out there who have to go through that ritual every year, and you can often face the fear of being alone on what is said to be the most romantic day of the year. However, there’s hope for you yet, well as far as your Facebook friends are concerned because they will not go easy on you if you struggle to get a date.

You’ll be pleased to learn that there is an answer for those of you who struggle or don’t wish to find a girlfriend and that is by getting yourself a fake Facebook girlfriend in time for Valentine’s Day. Website NamoroFake.com is giving you this opportunity to trick your friends but you’ll have to pay $39.99 in order to do so. The website will generate a fake Facebook profile and will even generate a number of comments to make the relationship seem more real to those who view your FB profile.

However, there is a downside because there will not be any images tagged on your profile of you and your girlfriend, but we all know how handy people can be when it comes to editing images. This does seem like an extreme length to go to in order to fool your friends, but who are we to judge.

For now there is only an option for fake girlfriends but if the business model proves successful then we are sure a version for boyfriends will follow. We wonder how long it will be before there is an option for fake families, as more often than not we wish we could swap ours with those who are more caring.

It may not get the attention of an Apple event, but the Facebook event for Jan 2013 is taking place today at 10 a.m. PT. The social media service has asked members of the media to attend and has the slogan “Come and see what we’re building“, which has led to questions being asked about what will the next big thing be?

There has been a great deal of speculation and CNET will be there to offer a live blog of the event. The likes of Engadget and other big websites are usually at these kinds of events, but for some reason they don’t seem interested in live-blogging from the event, although they could offer details on this a little later.

One would presume that Mark Zuckerberg will announce a host of changes to Facebook to help keep it fresh, because many users believe that the social media giant has taken their eye off the ball recently, although we are sure that they have been working behind the scenes to announce something big today. However, those rumors of a Facebook phone will not go away and because they have made a huge deal from this event, anything less would be seen as a big fail for Zuckerberg.

What is more likely though is Messenger for iPad, which is certainly not classed as something big. There is also the possibility of video ads that play in news feeds automatically, a refresh of the mobile feeds, and even a Facebook search engine. It’s clear that the biggest announcement would be a Facebook phone, but with no filing on FCC we do find it a little hard to believe. Maybe Zuckerberg’s something big is a little different to what you and I would class as something big?

One thing we do know, Facebook has to make some serious changes because they have been losing users in the US and UK at an alarming rate, which we’ll discuss a little later.

When it comes to third-party accessory support for tablet devices the Apple iPad has to have the greatest choice available to them. Since the tablet was first launched there have been thousands of accessories for users to choose from, but it wasn’t until the release of the 2nd-geneartion model that these manufactures started to get a little more inventive. The ClamCase was a fine example of this, but there were several issues that stopped it from being perfect. Thankfully there is now the ClamCase Pro for the iPad, which has had a number of improvements.

Before we look into those improvements, we thought you might like to know that the ClamCase Pro price is $170 but if you Like the company on Facebook then you’ll get a $20 discount. This isn’t the best deal you could have hoped for, but this Facebook incentive is something that we are starting to see more of lately.

The new ClamCase Pro takes all the good features from the original, which was considered a revolution, and improves on them. Firstly you’ll notice from the video that this new ClamCase is thinner, which kind of gives it the look of a thick MacBook Air and because it is thinner it’s also much lighter as well.

The keyboard was always a concern with the original model because it had a cramped feel when typing, so as you would assume this issue has been addressed and the keyboard is now more spaced out. Battery life is always going to be a concern so you’ll be happy to know that the ClamCase Pro will now go to sleep automatically when it is not being used and the moment you begin to type will turn back on.

The ClamCase pro is certainly a vast improvement over its predecessor, but if you are looking for something to improve the sound of the iPad, then maybe you should consider the Belkin iPad case instead.

We received a few tips about this problem with one reader stating “I said no to giving the Facebook Camera app my location and now I cannot upload any photos I take“, and this is thanks to how iOS works when you want to use an API to select more than one photo, something you cannot do in the regular Facebook app for iPhone and iPad.

It’s worth pointing out that this issue has a workaround, which comes to us thanks to this article. You just need to make sure location permissions are turned off when you take photos with your iPhone camera, which means no GPS data is included with your photos and allows you to upload photos in Facebook Camera with no location data attached. Even when you have set Location Permissions on for the Facebook Camera app you can also decide whether to share a photos location at the time of uploading, so it shouldn’t be a massive problem if you’re the paranoid type when it comes to privacy.

Do you like the idea of your Facebook contacts knowing where you took photos, or do you have a problem with sharing your location on Facebook? There have been times when people don’t want others to know the time they took a photo or where they were, which could be because you weren’t meant to be at that place at that time. Let us know if you’ve had any problems with the Facebook Camera app, and we’d also love to hear your first impressions.

You can see a video below that walks you through some of the main features for Facebook’s camera app.

Just 8 days into this month the Karma app jumped to version 1.80, and with it brought bug fixes that has made the experience better, which has been pointed out by a few comments on the official iTunes page with statements like “working again“. We had a little play with Karma on our iPhone and found it pretty easy to use, and it was great to not have to know the address of the person you want to send a gift to (never been that good with keeping track of addresses).

We’d have to agree with the new iPhone Rumors blog, when they state the app has a “very niche catalog“, which is thanks to what seems to be a selective partnership by those behind Karma. It will be interesting to see how the gifting app changes now it has been acquired by Facebook, and we hope they expand the gift catalog dramatically to provide a better service.

What do you think about the Karma gift-giving app for iPhone? Do you think the best gift is your time rather than spending it on Facebook, or is this a good solution for your busy lifestyle? We’ve embedded a video below that features the Karma co-founder talking about the app, and why it was created in the first place. The key success for this app comes from everyone sharing everything on Facebook, and with that connection you’re able to reach out and send a gift with Karma via email, SMS, and Facebook.

First up it’s well known that the Facebook app is lacking in a number of ways, and our readers continue to point out that it needs massive improvements, which considering Zuckerberg points to the “talented team” behind Instagram and that they can now “work closely” with this team shouts a lot to us about the benefits Facebook can gain from this buyout, although $1 billion is a lot for Instagram talent.

Confusion over Facebook buying Instagram – we’ve seen a number of articles asking why would Facebook want to buy Instagram, although most of these ask questions and also offer counter answers, but could this buyout be much more simple than most of us would like to believe? Some people point to tax reasons but we say it could simply be about “competition“, and Facebook not wanting the likes of Google to purchase Instagram first.

Facebook doesn’t need Instagram for the data or users, but when it comes to the word “competition” it has every reason to buy the popular app. Facebook knows pictures share well, something that has helped Pinterest grow massively recently, and one way for Facebook to have more photo control is to buy Instagram rather than letting the competition gain that edge. With this purchase in the bag it would stop the competition having more control of conversations around pictures – could it all really be this simple?

We’ve embedded a video below that looks at the $500 million valuation for Instagram, which is half of what Facebook paid, and looks at reasons behind the deal. You can also read about the Android Instagram app needing an update to help make it better than iOS, and how the app is a little distasteful for some pros.

It seems that Facebook went down today within the last hour, and a social networking heading towards a billion people is sure to get noticed when its users cannot connect. Normally these problems only last a little while, so we’ll update you when things are back to normal.

We’ve tried to connect to Facebook by computer and phone, and it seems the service is down globally, which is seen thanks to forums showing posts from all around the world including Scotland, Switzerland, Romania and more. Feel free to share a comment with what country you’re from and if you can access Facebook. We’ll post an update soon about the outage, and while we’ve heard about certain hackers saying they’ll take Facebook down it isn’t expected to be the case today.

Update: We’ve just had a message from one of our editors in Hong Kong who stated they can access Facebook, although a number of our readers and contacts in Europe cannot get access, so it might not be global after all. We’ve also heard from someone in Egypt, and they said Facebook gives them a message “No DNS entry found” and have also seen reports that there is a “Service Disruption” throughout the UK and Europe.

You can find out everything you need to know about this new application and download it here, we just installed it on a medium-spec Windows 7 64-bit laptop and on the whole we’re impressed, that said it did crash for us on one occasion and we spotted another couple of bugs and imperfections.

Installation is pretty painless and once installed you should find the program in your computer’s start menu, once you’ve ran the app it will also show up in the notification area of your Windows UI (see below). If you right click on the notification icon you can enable / disable chat sounds, dock the application to the right hand side of the screen, open the app, exit the app, log off or access help. On widescreen resolutions the dock to the right feature is particularly impressive.

As you’d expect, to use the app you will have to sign-in with your Facebook log-in credentials, once signed in you’ll see a list of contacts to chat with (just like you see in Facebook chat when you log into the website) – also there’s a notification area which update’s just like Facebook’s ticker. Below you can see the main user interface, if you chat with someone it opens in a new window, chat with somebody else and the conversation will show in a new tab within this window.

If you minimize the application the notification icon shows a message which tells you that you’ll still see messages and notification while the app runs in the background.

Sadly there are some problems and imperfections, firstly the app once crashed for us (see below), secondly group chat doesn’t work. Other things which didn’t impress us include the fact that there’s no option to remember your log-in credentials and the fact that selecting the ‘Log in’ option from the notification icon’s context menu doesn’t work for us, it just opens a tab in our default web browser telling us that we’re trying to navigate to a website which cannot be found.

All in all we are happy with the Facebook Messenger application, however there is room for improvement which we’re sure will arrive in the near future. If you installed the app and didn’t like it you can uninstall it by following these simple instructions, there’s lots of answers to other common frequent asked questions here.

Have you tried out the new Facebook Messenger application for Windows? If so, have you experienced any problems? Are there any additional features you’d like to see? Let us know below.