What would Facebook aficionados like more than to extract
their friend collection and put it in an instant messenger app? Hmm… Making an
awful lot of money perhaps. But for those who find that prospect a bit too hard to reach, they can at least indulge in chatting with their Facebook friends without having to see the timelines and the news feeds.
- Be in the know
Facebook Messenger is not just an offshoot application… well
it might have been at some point, but right now is a fully fledged mobile
instant messenger application. And best of all, the package includes your
friend list.
The contact screen lists your contacts but with a twist. It
features two lists: “Messenger” and “Active” One contains all of your friends
who use Facebook Messenger while the other one shows the contacts who have been
active recently. But this is kind of redundant. I mean, why would you care if
somebody uses the messenger or not? Moreover you will need to look up friends
that have been away for 6 hours or simply don’t use the messenger, because they
won’t appear on these lists. This is actually not a big deal if you’re aware of
it but might become confusing at first. Another confusing choice of interface
is that friend images are marked with either a grey Facebook icon or a blue
Facebook Messenger icon, both of which give the fake impression of conveying
online statuses.
Groups is a more recent feature to the messenger. It allows
you to pick up on existing conversation groups or create new ones. Be advised
that everybody involved will be notified.
But the coolest aspect of Facebook Messenger are the chat
heads. These work like little notification pop-ups that appear whenever you get
a new message. Although pop-ups might be annoying in general, these one have
received a good education and only show you a small circle of who has messaged
you and with how many lines. You may then dismiss it by dragging it to the
bottom of the screen, you may re-locate it by dragging it to any other edge.
But the magical part comes in when you tap it. If you do then it won’t
bring up the messenger but instead it will just extend to show you the
conversation and any other active chat heads. You can then type back, switch to
another chat head or simply tap it back to its un-invasive form.
- Features:
- Chat heads – the most comfortable way to chat while doing something else
- Audio Calls – free audio calls between Facebook Messenger users (oh so that’s why you get a list of Messenger users, yeah I get it now)
- Groups – group messages
I believe that the contact lists could have had a better
layout but this is not horrible either. Considering that you still see all of
your recent contacts on a separate list, then the issue is minimized. The Chat
heads are great though. I love them!
- Version:
5.0.0.51733
- Size:
22.00 MB
- Operating System:
Handheld/Mobile Other