AT&T Says it Won't Kill ‘Facebook' Phone

After a day of rumors that AT&T was killing off its "Facebook" phone, the HTC Status, AT&T reported that it was keeping the smartphone in its catalogue.

TechCrunch cited a "trusted source" that said AT&T was preparing to "ditch" the Status because of poor sales, but their story was somewhat compromised by AT&T releasing the following statement, “The HTC Status is a great product and our plans for it to be part of our portfolio haven’t changed.”

The $49.99 HTC Status, which debuted on July 17, was dubbed the "Facebook phone" because it had a dedicated button that connected a user straight to the social network. It also runs on Android Gingerbread and has 2.6-inch touchscreen and full keyboard -- something that made it look not unlike a BlackBerry. (However, despite the dedicated button, it's not really a Facebook-endorsed phone -- Facebook itself has told Press:Here that it's not interested in hardware.)

The real story here is that many sites piled onto the TechCrunch story without much due diligence. One call to AT&T and the entire "death of the HTC Status" changed to a nonstory.

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