Facebook quietly released an updated Android app Thursday, and those attached to the ability to chat within the app will be happy.
But that’s likely to be a short-lived satisfaction, given confirmed news reports this week that Facebook will eventually remove chat from its mobile apps and force users who want to keep in instant contact with Facebook friends to download the Messenger app.
The current update, available now in the Google Play store, isn’t remarkable different than the old version. Facebook’s very limited release notes say improvements have been made to reliability and speed.
The app adds the ability to swipe to navigate between your News Feed, friend requests, messages, notifications and the information available on the left sidebar of the desktop version (groups, page favorites, Facebook apps and so on).
There’s also a new Search button — though I remember having one in the former app and it’s not clear how this one’s different.
Early reviews in the Play Store have been rough, with many users complaining that it’s now more cumbersome to set the News Feed display to “Most Recent” instead of the default “Top Stories.” For instance:
How about allowing a user to decide between Top Stories and Most Recent. I can’t even put into words how much I hate clicking on the furthest right button and scrolling down to see Most Recent. I’d wager the majority of people use this. Please fix!
Have you downloaded the app yet? What do you think?
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