Facebook shrunk the size of its Messenger app, and stripped out some features, intending to make it faster to load and simpler to navigate.
Some of the missing features will be back, though.
Facebook Messenger gets ‘Faster, Smaller and Simpler’
The redesign does away with chatbots and games and makes Stories even more prominent, as was predicted last week.
Facebook says reducing features enabled Messenger’s core code to go from more than 1.7 million lines of code to 360,000 — an 84% decrease. That’s important for those who use the app on older devices.
The change also makes it more responsive. CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised the app will load twice as quickly. “It will feel much faster and more responsive compared to other apps you use,” he said.
But not everything missing from the version available now is gone for good. “As part of the rebuild, a few features will be temporarily unavailable, but we’re working to bring them back soon,” notes Raymond Endres, Facebook’s VP of Engineering, Messenger. Still, he says the new version will stay “Faster, Smaller and Simpler.”
Facebook Messenger 254.0 can be downloaded now from Apple’s App Store. It is free to use.
Source: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
