YOU MAY HAVE SEEN All Things D’s excellent reports on the existence of a Facebook phone.

If you have, you probably have the same question we had when we read them: What will the OS look like?

This answer to this question is probably already on your iPhone.

A source close to people who actually worked on Facebook’s project tells us that when he saw Facebook’s latest iPhone app – launched this fall – he was stunned by how much it looked like mock-ups he’d seen of Facebook’s future mobile operating system.

For example, the way the news feed slides to the right in that app to reveal a menu “was part of the initial design for Buffy.”
Buffy is the code-name for the Facebook phone. The original code name was Slayer, short for “social layer,” but Facebook execs thought that sounded too violent, which is a funny concern for a “secret” code name.

A source said it makes sense that Facebook’s iPhone and iPad apps would look so much like Buffy. Facebook’s goal is to unify the design of all of its mobile software.

Facebook declined to comment on this story.

- Nicholas Carlson