Android Users Must Move From Facebook Messenger As Text Message Apps After September 28

Android users must leave Facebook Messenger (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - Android users should leave Facebook Messenger as their text messaging app after September 28.

Meta quietly announced these changes on Monday, August 28 on its support page, meaning users who rely on this app to send and receive text messages must look for new communication methods.

The app, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, does not explain the reasons behind this change, but rumors are circulating that Messenger will experience major changes in September.

In contrast to 'Short Messaging Service' (SMS), SMS is an existing industry standard for decades for text-based communication between pagers, mobile phones, and other wireless devices.

Industry observers and loyal Messenger users speculate that the compatibility of SMS in this app may be back or even combined into Meta's WhatsApp, which is more widely used on mobile phones.

However, meanwhile, Messenger users have to adjust their habits.

"You can still send and receive SMS messages via your mobile network," reads the notification posted at the Messenger Help Center, "and access your SMS message history via the new default messaging app on your phone."

"If you don't select your own new default messaging app," the notification continued, "Your SMS message will automatically log in to your phone's default messaging app, such as the Android Messages app."

Over the years, SMS text messages have become a major bridge, especially in the United States, between mobile phone users and different service providers, Apple's "closed garden" operating system, or different mobile device technology.

Android users do not have access to a rich text messaging experience like Apple's iMessage on the iPhone. Classical phone users also can't see either Android's iMessage or Rich Communication Service (RCS), a communication protocol. But everyone can send and receive SMS text messages.

Many major banks and other institutions offer only two-factor authentication for secure long-distance access via SMS text messages and this practice doesn't seem to stop anytime soon.

In 2016, it seems that Facebook hopes that Messenger can compete with Apple's iMessage wide use and Google's Android Messages on mobile, laptops, tablets, and PCs.

The SMS integration on Facebook Messenger features SMS text messages in purple, and the Facebook Messenger conversation in blue, not much different from Apple's custom of displaying iMessage in blue and other types of messages in green.

The authors at TechRadar and the Reddit r/Android community speculate that Meta may be considering re-launching this SMS feature 'together with some upgrades' or transferring Messenger staff and resources to another major messaging app, WhatsApp, instead.

However, Messenger's compatibility termination with SMS text messages may also be explained by cutting costs made by the company as a whole.

Facebook founder, who now serves as CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, called 2023 a 'year of efficiency' as the company seeks to cut costs decisively, including by carrying out thousands of sacks since November last year.

The number of staff was first reduced by 13 percent, when 11,000 workers were fired from Meta that month.

Then, in March this year, the CEO announced an effort to cut costs, which aims to ultimately reduce 10,000 jobs in the company, with more dismissals last July.

As Zuckerberg said in February, "We are working to level our organizational structure and eliminate some levels of medium management to make decisions more quickly, and implement artificial intelligence tools to help our engineers be more productive."

"We will be more proactive in cutting projects that are not performing well or may no longer be so important," he wrote, 'But my main focus is increasing the efficiency of our top priority implementation."