Single-tasking has been a hallmark of mobile. But Facebook Home lets you chat in an overlaid drop-down window as you use Google, Yelp, Maps or any other app, bringing the productivity of the desktop to the small screen. Home’s cover feed and responsive design are nice, but you could call them mediocre. Chat multi-tasking, though, merges the communication and computing sides of the smartphone. → Read More
Facebook is slowly beefing up the capabilities of its Messenger app as it moves to combat the rise of free messaging apps like Whatsapp, Viber and Line. Today it’s taking another baby step by expanding VoIP calling to U.K. users of its iOS app, following its initial test of the feature in Canada in January, which was soon followed by a U.S. rollout. → Read More
Facebook is deepening its relationships with carriers in emerging markets today with a deal that would bring free or discounted data access for people who use Facebook Messages. The company has done these types of win-win deals in the past. Carriers get to give their customers access to what is probably the most widely-used app in the world, gaining an edge over competitors in the same market. → Read More
The first world might use just a handful of handsets, but the key to Facebook’s growth is emerging markets fragmented across over 7,000 smart and dumb phones. To help it bug test for all these, Facebook keeps an office “library” of mobile devices, product manager Peter Deng revealed. So what’s the team testing now? A version of Messenger for feature phones that doesn’t require a Facebook account. → Read More
Today Facebook announced its first-ever product open to people without a Facebook account. Starting now, the Messenger for Android app, and later its iOS counterpart, will allow signups from non-Facebook users with just a name and phone number. Facebook seems to have realized the limited reach of Messenger as is and wants to let you message your contacts whether or not they’ve joined Facebook. → Read More
How does Facebook know what features are good enough for its main smartphone apps? It tests them on the power users of its standalone apps Camera and Messenger. If the guinea pigs dig a new gesture or option, it gets called up to the big leagues — the 100 million+ user Facebook for iOS and Android apps. → Read More
Facebook just launched a new version of its Messenger app for iOS. Messenger, the company’s stand-alone chat app, got a bit of a user interface refresh with this update, as well as a speed boost and official support for iOS 6 and the iPhone 5′s larger display. Today’s update comes just a bit more than a week after Facebook also launched an update to its Messenger app for Android and, for the most… → Read More
No need to wonder if your family saw that reminder about dinner or if co-workers noticed you uploaded a Powerpoint, as Facebook Groups will soon display a count and a list of names of who saw each post. For example: “Seen by 2″, and when hovered “Josh Constine | Eric Eldon”. The feature is rolling out to English-language groups starting now.
These “read receipts” is a feature Facebook recently… → Read More
Facebook has released an update to its Android app today that should give users of the social network on Android devices a more integrated and instant experience — and takes Facebook another step closer to making its mobile app experience more like the one people have when using the social network on the web.
Specifically, the new version lets users share photos and messages direct from the… → Read More
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