14 DAY TRIAL // Social networking giant Facebook Inc. has rolled out the latest version of its instant messaging app, Facebook Messenger 5.0, for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, delivering new features, like the ability to send videos from your phone's camera roll, easy sticker downloads, and improved search.
“Messenger is a fast, free and reliable way to stay in touch. It's just like texting, but you don't have to pay for every message,” says the social network.
It uses Wi-Fi or your existing data plan and has a lot of features in common with WhatsApp Messenger, which makes it very likely for the two apps to merge one day (since Facebook now owns WhatsApp).
Key features of the Facebook Messenger app include the ability to get your messages without opening Facebook, send photos privately, text actual phone contacts and have group convos, share your exact location (if you want), know when people have seen your texts, tweak notification settings, and much more.
Version 5.0 is out today with a number of enhancements that’ll make using Facebook Messenger even more pleasurable. There are more ways to message your friends now, with Facebook noting that “Everything's front and center, so it's easier to send photos, voice messages and more.”
Users can send videos from their phone's camera roll and take a photo and just send it with one tap, without leaving the conversation. When people send you videos, you can now play them right inside Facebook Messenger.
When someone sends you a sticker, you now have the ability to press and hold down on it to get the entire pack of stickers it stems from. The update further improves search by letting you enter the names of people and groups to find them really fast. Users will notice some fixes too, including to stickers and groups, according to the release notes.
Weighing in at 36.8 MB, Facebook Messenger is localized in English, Bokmål, Norwegian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
iDevice owners can download Facebook Messenger 5.0 for free on any device type that supports iOS 6.0 firmware and newer. Models include iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPad second generation, iPad third generation, iPad fourth generation, iPad Air, iPad mini, iPad mini with Retina display, iPod touch fourth generation, and iPod touch fifth generation.