After years of keeping the apps separate, Meta has announced that Messenger will be re-joining the Facebook app in the near future. Spotted by The Verge and confirmed in a recent blog post, Meta says it’s already in the process of making this change a reality. And that users will begin to see the changes in the near future.
Regarding the change, Meta states “Ultimately, we want it to be easy and convenient for people to connect and share, whether in the Messenger app or directly within Facebook.” Basically this means that not too far from now (hopefully), you won’t have to have the Messenger app installed on your phone to see the inbox. You’ll be able to do it all within the Facebook app. One singular app for both communication through Messenger and scrolling through your news feed.
The initial split was supposed to be due to the fact that people would have a better experience if the two were separate. But nearly ten years on and that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. If it ever was in the first place.
Messenger is currently being tested in the Facebook app now
Meta doesn’t say when these changes will be fully rolled out. It does however mention that testing is currently happening. Some users do have access to their Messenger inboxes from within Facebook. Testing is also set to expand to additional users soon.
The company also wants to bring more of Messenger’s features over. And says that it will be planning to do so over the coming year. From the sounds of things, you’ll only have access to the inbox and basic messaging features in the beginning. But as time goes on, most if not all of the features will probably be brought over. These changes should also be made across both the Android and iOS versions of the app.