Facebook Messenger

For a while now, I have been dogging Facebook's iOS app to my friends for being buggy, crazy, and generally slow. Honestly, the quality of the Facebook iOS app would lead one to think Facebook was a three person outfit handing development of the app to a volunteer intern. And ever since Facebook revamped their Messages infrastructure, the iOS app hasn't been playing as nicely with that particular area of the service.

Well, a while ago, Facebook acquired Beluga, which was an app for sending and receiving messages, pictures, and locations between two people or a small group. Say, that fits right in with Facebook's reimagination of Messages, doesn't it?

Yesterday saw the first fruits of Facebook's Beluga acquisition, as they released Messenger for iOS and Android. This new, separate app is pretty much a wholesale replacement for the current "inbox" area of the Facebook app, doing one thing and doing it very well.

In a couple conversations I've had using Messenger, it facilitates quick messaging very quickly and easily. One friend I was chatting with said it was a little crazy how it was sending duplicates of the messages to his email address and texting his phone in addition to notifying him via push notification for the app. I don't have this problem as I have disabled Facebook from sending me any emails or texts. I prefer to keep Facebook's communication within Facebook's own ecosystem. If I want to check Facebook, I'll go to Facebook.

Overall, the Messenger app is solid and performs well. It's much more stable than Google's competing Huddle feature within the Google+ app. If you're a Facebook on the go, I can't see why you wouldn't want to use Messenger over having Facebook always email you.

I can only hope that Facebook is letting the Beluga team rewrite their primary app accordingly.