Facebook is rolling out a new version of Messenger on iOS, which it says is “faster, smaller and simpler,” having been built “from the ground up.”
Ever since Messenger became its own app in 2011, Facebook has stuffed it full of features, leading to a cluttered experience that many found difficult to navigate. Last year, at F8, Facebook announced that it was working to redesign Messenger and simplify it for users. The result of its efforts, internally called Project LightSpeed, is a Messenger that is twice as fast at loading, one-fourth the size, and significantly simpler than its predecessor.
So, what can we expect? Well, on one hand, opening and operating the app will be faster, leading to a better day-to-day experience for people who use it all the time. The fact that it is smaller, will bring faster response, download, and update times, especially for people using older devices or those accessing the app from areas with lower connectivity.
Furthermore, the app has been streamlined while keeping it rich with features. As Facebook explains in a recent post, its simplicity “not only helps with the cognitive load for people, but it also means engineers don’t need to build new experiences from the ground up.”
Facebook reduced Messenger’s core code by 84% – from 1.7 million lines down to 360,000 – and rebuilt the app’s features to fit “a new, simplified infrastructure.” This also means that some features are unavailable for the time being but the team behind the app is working on bringing these back soon.
Within the next few weeks, the new version of Messenger will be rolling out to users on iOS.
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