Finally! It's never made much sense to me that Messenger is both part of the main app, and a separate app - it's pointless duplication. Glad to see they're making up their minds.
Pointless duplication for sure. So why not get rid of the Messenger app? Why do they need two apps? (Three, if you count Paper) (Four, if you also count the Pages app). Seriously doubt I'll re-install the messenger app even if the main app drops support for messages.
Since iOS doesn't have a back button that works cross app, this sounds bad for usability. Already it pains me to be bounced in and out between the main app and the Pages app, with no working back navigation. This'll be even worse.
It always drove me nuts that on Android, the main and Messenger app had the same APK size -- it made you wonder whether they had the same APK with a different activity set as the start activity.
…except that the separate app is a total power drain (at least on iOS) because it has a lot of background processing time it uses and is also apparently a VOIP client.
I'd think it would help. A lot of people will only use the messaging much and the main app little. The messaging app is much smaller and more lightweight, and probably makes a more efficient use of resources.
I don't have numbers from Instruments, but anecdatally ;), both my wife and I experienced substantially shorter battery life when we had Messenger installed because it was always waking up in the background—even if we weren't using it.
Messenger may be a little more efficient when running, but it wants to run all the time, which is less efficient.
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Finally! It's never made much sense to me that Messenger is both part of the main app, and a separate app - it's pointless duplication. Glad to see they're making up their minds.
Pointless duplication for sure. So why not get rid of the Messenger app? Why do they need two apps? (Three, if you count Paper) (Four, if you also count the Pages app). Seriously doubt I'll re-install the messenger app even if the main app drops support for messages.
Since iOS doesn't have a back button that works cross app, this sounds bad for usability. Already it pains me to be bounced in and out between the main app and the Pages app, with no working back navigation. This'll be even worse.
Because they want users to be able to use Paper instead of the main app, without bundling Messenger into both apps.
5 if you count Facebook's Camera app
Agree. I use both the news feed and the chat. What, now I have to have two apps? Fuck you Facebook.
It always drove me nuts that on Android, the main and Messenger app had the same APK size -- it made you wonder whether they had the same APK with a different activity set as the start activity.
…except that the separate app is a total power drain (at least on iOS) because it has a lot of background processing time it uses and is also apparently a VOIP client.
I'd think it would help. A lot of people will only use the messaging much and the main app little. The messaging app is much smaller and more lightweight, and probably makes a more efficient use of resources.
I don't have numbers from Instruments, but anecdatally ;), both my wife and I experienced substantially shorter battery life when we had Messenger installed because it was always waking up in the background—even if we weren't using it.
Messenger may be a little more efficient when running, but it wants to run all the time, which is less efficient.
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/06/04/developer-suspects-facebook-a... http://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1xyap9/
That's about the FB app, not Messenger.
Also, I suspect if you use FB messaging much you would've had the same problem.