Facebook denies phone rumors, hints at heavy integration with HTC

Not surprisingly, Facebook has flatly denied yesterday’s rumor about a potential phone unveiling next month, Reuters reports.

Instead, it looks as if the rumor was really about new Facebook integration in upcoming phones built by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. “This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way,” said Facebook’s head of business development Dan Rose at a London press event.

“The rumors around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown,” he continued. When asked if the HTC device would have any Facebook branding, he simply said, “No.”

We didn’t really put much credence on the original rumor, so we’re not exactly heartbroken over Facebook’s denial. The news also basically confirms that we’ll be seeing the next version HTC’s Sense user interface on new Android phones next month at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. The company announced its latest Sense revision last year at the event, so it’s certainly due for an upgrade.

It’ll be interesting to see how HTC will compete with Android’s increasingly polished native interface, which is looking better with every major update. With Android 3.0, Google has managed to deliver an interface that looks even better than Apple’s iOS. That means HTC’s new Sense UI will have to be particularly compelling to convince users they need it.