- Facebook announced Messenger 4, which significantly simplifies the interface.
- Messenger 4 also lets you add color gradients to chat bubbles in conversations.
- The update will roll out to Android and iOS in the coming weeks.
With all the hoopla that Facebook and its CEO have faced in recent months, Facebook Messenger continues to chug along as one of the most popular messaging services out there. It also looks extremely busy, though the new Messenger 4 update looks to fix that.
The biggest difference with Messenger 4 is how much more simple the design interface is. Up until now, Messenger had nine tabs you could navigate through and which made the interface feel very busy and loaded. Messenger 4 decreases the number of tabs down to just three: Chats, People, and Discover.
As the name suggests, Chats is where all of your messages live and where you start out when you open the app. People is where you can find the list of Facebook friends that are currently online and where you can search through your entire friends list. Finally, Discover is where everything else lives. That includes businesses you can message and Instant Games you can play.
If all of that sounds familiar, that is because functionality largely remains the same; the more significant differences are visual. In the Chats tab, for example, the camera and new message buttons now live on the top right.
There is a new inclusion worth talking about: color gradients for chat bubbles in conversations. For example, you can see the color change from red to blue as you scroll up and down a conversation.
Finally, Facebook also said it is working on new Messenger features for future updates, which include the ever-popular Dark Mode.
Messenger 4 will gradually roll out over the coming weeks for Android and iOS.
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