Meta is scrapping this nifty feature from Facebook Messenger in September
Android users will have to abandon Facebook Messenger as their dedicated texting app after September 28.
Meta quietly announced the change on its support page on Monday, meaning users who rely on the app to send and receive text messages will have to find a new method of communication.
Mark Zuckerberg’s app didn’t explain the move, but Messenger is rumored to be getting a major overhaul in September.
SMS, short for Short Messaging Service, is the decades-old industry standard established for text-based communication between pagers, cell phones, and other wireless devices.
Messenger users who have set the app as the default for texting should prepare this fall
Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – has announced via a post in their Help Center that the Messenger text syncing feature will be discontinued after all updates after September 28, 2023
Industry watchers and dedicated Messenger users speculate that the app’s SMS compatibility could return one more time or perhaps merge with Meta’s WhatsApp, which is more widely used on mobile phones.
In the meantime, however, Messenger users will have to adjust their habits.
“You can still send and receive text messages using your mobile network,” one message read posted in the Messenger Help Center“and access your text message history through your phone’s new default messaging app.”
“If you don’t choose your own new default messaging app,” the post continued, “your text messages will automatically go to your phone’s default messaging app, such as the Android Messages app.”
For years, SMS text messaging has been the primary bridge, especially in the United States, between mobile phone users of different carriers, Apple’s “walled garden” operating systems, or different eras of mobile device technology.
Android users can’t access the rich texting experience of Apple’s iMessage on iPhone. Older mobile users may not see iMessage or Android’s Rich Communications Services (RCS) as a communications protocol.
But anyone can send and receive a text message.
Many major banks and other institutions only offer two-factor authentication for their customers’ secure remote access via text messages – and the practice doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon.
Writers at TechRadar and in Reddit’s r/Android community have speculated that Meta may want to relaunch this SMS feature “along with some upgrades” or redeploy Messenger staff and resources to their other major messaging app , WhatsApp.
In 2016, it seemed like Facebook hoped Messenger could rival the widespread use of Apple’s iMessage and Google Android Messages on mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and PCs.
The Facebook Messenger SMS integration displayed text messages in purple and Facebook Messenger conversations in blue, similar to Apple’s habit of displaying iMessages in blue and any other type of text in green.
Writers at TechRadar and in Reddit’s r/Android community have speculated that Meta may be looking to relaunch this SMS feature “along with some upgrades” or instead redeploy Messenger staff and resources to their other major messaging app, WhatsApp.
However, company-wide budget cuts could also explain the end of Messenger’s compatibility with text messages.
Facebook founder, now Meta’s chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has called 2023 a “year of efficiency” as the company unsentimentally tries to cut costs, including thousands of layoffs since last November.
The workforce first shrank 13 percent when 11,000 workers were laid off at Meta that month.
Then last March, the CEO announced a cost cut, which aims to eventually cut 10,000 jobs at the company, with more layoffs in July.
Like Zuckerberg framed the moves in February“We are working to flatten our organizational structure and remove some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, and deploy AI tools to help our technicians be more productive.”
“We are going to be more proactive about scrapping projects that are not performing or may not be as critical anymore,” he wrote, “but my main focus is on increasing the efficiency of how we execute on our top priorities.”