When Facebook made its well-publicized purchase of Instagram last year for one billion dollars, many fans of the photo-sharing app feared the worst - that their beloved service was to become an extension of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has stuck to his promise to allow Instagram to retain its own identity, but much integration between the two has ensued, and in the latest, Facebook Messenger for iPhone has just been updated, adding, among other things, a new Instagram sharing feature.
Facebook Messenger for iPhone has been updated today with one of our favorite features – Stickers – along with a bunch of other improvements. We’ve got the details on the update along with the download link right after the break.
One of the most exciting features of Facebook Home, the social network's new Android launcher set to hit the Google Play Store later today, is the new 'Chat Heads' feature, which allows all SMS and Facebook messages to manifest themselves from within a single interface. The main idea behind it, of course, is to lessen the need for you to keep flitting between Facebook Messenger and your native SMS app, and although Home is itself limited currently in how many devices it will cater to, Chat Heads has just arrived to the standalone Facebook Messenger app by means of an update. Details next.
Facebook's initial decision to separate the instant messaging functionality from the main, official iOS app was met with a few raised eyebrows. However, since that point way back in August 2011, the Messenger app has been at the crux of the social network's major expansion plans, and with VoIP calling being among the more significant implementations to Facebook Messenger, those residing in the United Kingdom can also join in the fun. The service, which goes straight for the jugular of services like Skype, has hitherto only been available to those in the United States (and, more recently, Canada). The news will certainly delight many British Facebook users, and seeing as the feature is running live, users do not need to download a new version of Facebook Messenger in order to enjoy it.
Facebook's Messenger started out as an MSN-like instant-messaging service, but has since evolved into an all-singing, all-dancing service complete with its very own app. When it broke away from the official Facebook mobile app, some questioned the necessity of two separate entities, but as Zuck and his merry men have continued to pile on the features, it has become very clear that Messenger is worthy of its lone identity. Today, the popular app for iOS and Android have been updated with even more goodies, such as thee ability to send out voice messages, as well as call friends free of charge.
It has always been a subject of curiosity as to why Facebook decided to make its Messenger feature a separate entity on mobile devices. The fact the version 1.0 of Facebook Messenger was riddled to the core with bugs certainly didn't help, but while many had seen the move to separate the two as merely arbitrary or for purpose of vanity, it appears there is, after all, some method to the madness. The Android department of the Facebook Messenger app will soon be releasing an update fairly soon to users in select countries, and intriguingly, it will no longer require users to own an account to log in and get chatting. A direct challenge to the likes of WhatsApp and the traditional SMS app? We think so.
The guys over at Facebook could be forgiven for going into the weekend expecting to have a nice relaxing time, considering the amount of effort that has been expended by the company in the last couple of days by pushing out updates to their mobile software. Both Android and iOS users have benefitted from the world's largest social network, eventually getting themselves into gear with a spree of updates, beginning with a new version of Facebook for Android that brought more efficient image handling and closer control of the creation of events through mobile.
Do you live your life on Facebook but happen to be unfortunate enough to be forced to use either Windows Vista or XP? Maybe you've got some bespoke hardware or software that needs one of Microsoft's older operating systems in order to function, but still need to be able to keep in touch with everyone via the modern wonder that is Facebook. Well, you're in luck.
Fresh from its acquisition of the popular Instagram service, Facebook is continuing to take large strides in its mobile push, and according to sources close to 9to5mac, the social site is preparing a Messenger app native to iPad, as well as video chat capabilities for the iPad.
Personally speaking, I am not a big Facebook fan, but there are millions upon millions of people all over the globe who can't go a day without logging into the world’s largest social network and checking out what kind of sandwich their old school friend had for lunch, or poking their best friend in an act of online bullying. Although already wildly popular, the whole Facebook experience may be a distinctly better one for a large portion of users if they didn't need to be constantly signed into the web service with a browser running all the time.
