Facebook Adds SMS Support To Messenger (techcrunch.com)

Facebook Messenger already lets you send texts to your friends and other billion people on the social network, and also make voice calls and video calls. The social juggernaut is now also introducing support for SMS messages. The move comes a day after Apple introduced several new features to its Message app. Facebook Messenger used to have SMS functionality, but it was pulled in 2013 citing low usage. The feature is currently only available on Messenger for Android. TechCrunch reports: Users on any platform can receive SMS sent through Messenger, and they won't be able to tell it wasn't sent from a standard texting app. But since Apple doesn't provide as much flexibility for developers, iOS provides no option to change your SMS client, and there are no plans to bring this Facebook feature to the iPhone.In some other news, Facebook's move to retire messaging feature from its mobile website has irked Ubuntu Phone users.

Comments

I hope they fail.

[danbob999]

I hope Facebook, Apple, and all others closed-down, proprietary messaging protocols will fail and that open standards will win.

Re:I hope they fail.

[Old97]

Apple provides end to end encryption and better abilities to keep spam out, partly due to its being proprietary. Some third party applications also provide these features. I don't know what Facebook will do, but when you are communicating with SMS using its messaging they change the background color from blue to green so that you know your texting in the clear. What "open standard" apps offer this?

Re:I hope they fail.

[halivar]

Do you know what SMS is?

Re:I hope they fail.

[Yvan256]

If you think Apple are slave to the US government you haven't been following the news lately.

Re:I hope they fail.

[Shakrai]

I hope Facebook, Apple, and all others closed-down, proprietary messaging protocols will fail and that open standards will win.

Like IRC? It has been an open standard since 1988 or so. It's low bandwidth. It provides the complete framework one needs for private and group messaging. It was invented in the same country that invented SMS. It's controlled by no central authority and resistant to corporate and governmental censorship.

And guess what? Nobody uses it.

I fear that the internet is taking a huge step backwards, with the centralization of power in a handful of powerful for-profit companies. They're fast becoming the new America Online, complete with walled garden, but in many ways they're actually worse than AOL: At least with AOL you were the customer. Facebook's only "customers" are its advertisers and everything they do is ultimately designed to cater to them.

Re:I hope they fail.

[bondsbw]

I use iMessage, and I don't have many problems with it. But one friend who doesn't have iOS can't join group iMessages, so a group that meets regularly at different locations often plans things without him and sometimes we even forget to notify him.

Yes, we are bad friends.

But I'd like to be a better friend by including him. Apple would rather him buy an iPhone.

Re:I hope they fail.

[danbob999]

Yes, we are bad friends.

Well at least you admit it. The surprise is that you only have one of such friends, since Apple only has about 15% market share world wide, and rarely over 40% in its most successful countries (that is, if you don't have friends in other countries).

Re:I hope they fail.

[danbob999]

Apple provides end to end encryption and better abilities to keep spam out, partly due to its being proprietary.

Not only they keep spam out, but they also keep 85% of legitimate users out of it too. Any protocol with no users has no spam.

Re:I hope they fail.

[bondsbw]

Well, I only have one such friend in the specific group that gets together. Still you're right, it's kind of surprising even then. But I know plenty of Android users (and was one myself until the grass looked greener... unfortunately it has since browned...).

Re:I hope they fail.

[Old97]

They don't keep 55% of users from messaging you because iMessage can send/receive SMS. Non Apple users just don't get the benefits/features of iMessage. If you want the security then you can use a third party (proprietary) messaging app that runs on iOS and Android. My point is that I don't know of an "open standards" app that provides end to end encryption and the other features of iMessage or similar 3rd party apps.

Re:I hope they fail.

[danbob999]

They don't keep 55% of users from messaging you because iMessage can send/receive SMS.

It's not 55% it's 85%, and that's just smartphones. Instant messaging is not limited to phones. Not everyone has a cell phone or want to use it for messaging. Relying on SMS and a phone number is a major issue.
How do I contact someone on iMessage from my PC? From my non-cellular tablet? What is my cell phone battery is dead but have a perfectly working PC and a real keyboard?

Re:I hope they fail.

[Old97]

If you had a Mac instead of a PC you wouldn't have that problem. ;) PC users might consider AOL or Yahoo messenger. You can get access from most any device.

Re:I hope they fail.

[danbob999]

I would still have that problem with a Mac because I could only communicate with those with an iPhone or a Mac. No thanks. Of all available messaging protocols, iMessage is by far the most limited.

Re:I hope they fail.

[danbob999]

No, not like IRC. IRC is chat rooms, not instant messaging.

OMEMO/Axolotyl

[bill_mcgonigle]

Can we get a merge with WhatsApp and federation with Signal? That would make a pretty damn compelling case for switching to FB Messenger (I trust them a hair more than sending messages over SS7).

Re:OMEMO/Axolotyl

[danbob999]

The problem with whatsapp is that the user ID is a phone number. It brings many flaws.

"has irked Ubuntu Phone users"

[Anonymous Coward]

both of them?!

Re:"has irked Ubuntu Phone users"

[danbob999]

not using Ubuntu Phone, but when I used Facebook messaging on my phone, it was through the web. I'm not installing any of their bloated app.

Re: "has irked Ubuntu Phone users"

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

I don't use FB messenger but from time to time I get a message from a distant family member and its pretty inconvenient to not be able to read them through the browser. I use Firefox on Android, and can switch to "Request desktop site" and am able to access messages.

Re: "has irked Ubuntu Phone users"

[Voyager529]

Me Either. When Facebook made the change, I looked around and found this app:
https://play.google.com/store/...
Sane permissions (internet, camera, location), much smaller footprint.

10/10 would download again.

Slahsdot, news from apps

[Pope Raymond Lama]

Stuff that... who cares??

You get headlines on every little change on every high-profile app, just because.

Once upon a timewe used to find news around here.

Deja vu

[fieldstone]

Doesn't anyone remember how the Facebook messenger app used to do this before?

Re:Deja vu

[richy freeway]

Yeah I've definitely heard it mentioned somewhere before...

Messages through Facebook

[phorm]

So in other words, now in addition to all your Facebook messages, contacts, pictures, and other data, they'll give you the option of sending all your text-message data to their servers for analytics as well...

Re:Messages through Facebook

[thegarbz]

Nope. Facebook has been getting this data for years. There's nothing new to be outraged about here.

Oh, boy!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Apparently Facebook wants to collect those additional phone numbers which they haven't been able to get via Find My Friends.

Re:Oh, boy!

[thegarbz]

lol. Implying that this requires a permission that Facebook hasn't had since it first released a phone app.

Sorry but you kids have cried wolf so long that now I just use it to rock me gently to sleep. Get a clue.

OH NOES!!!

[mschwanke97402]

The FaceBook set are now able to send text messages? Wasn't bad enough that they were poking, prodding and, in general, annoying the F**K out of one another. Now they can like me and friend me by SMS too!!! I can just see Zuck harvesting names and phone numbers for use by his FaceBook hordes to reach out and assimilate us non-members.

Don't believe me? I recall quite clearly when FaceBook harvested data from domain registries and other sources to use in creating millions of FaceBook business pages, including one for my business, without my permission mind. Following that I was hounded to "claim my page". I did claim it and then went through all the nonsense it actually takes to delete a FaceBook account permanently.

These #%^@#$@# new-economy types have no scruples, ethics or honor.

Re:OH NOES!!!

[thegarbz]

now able to

Now they

Sorry to break your rant, but there's no new permissions required for this change. The original Facebook app released with first generation smartphones already had access to your contact list, and it's had access to SMS messages for the good part of 6 years now too.

Re:OH NOES!!!

[mschwanke97402]

Not exactly what I was ranting about. I can see a mechanism for FaceBookers to search out old (and new) friends, not on their own contact list being implemented by Zuck. Lost touch with Joey from 3rd grade? No problem we'll send him a text for you right now!

Queue the outrage

[thegarbz]

No surprise here. Less than 20 posts and a good 1/3/rd of them already complaining about how this is just another data grab by Facebook without realising that access to contacts, phone numbers, and messages has been part of the Facebook app since the Facebook app existed.

*yawn*

Wake me when someone gets access to something they didn't have before.

Re: How about adding messager support back to thei

[Anonymous Coward]

Other features were deemed more important than fixing chat. Fixing it is not even on our roadmap.

Messenger? Keep it.

[emil]

I'm advising anyone of importance to contact me through other channels. I have Tinfoil forced to desktop mode so I can see anything sent to me.

I had pondered forcibly enabling messenger in the Facebook APK (for Android), but I really don't want to rely on Facebook corporate anymore. I need to move away from their network.

I've never advised anyone to load fb-messenger, and I never will.

They irked more that just Ubuntu users

[Tomahawk]

I use android, but don't want to install Facebook Messenger, or indeed any Facebook apps, on my phone. I was happy enough just using the mobile web site for the few times I used Facebook. There are enough scare stories, true or not, about Facebook that I don't want anything they wrote running on my phone.

Since they started on this campaign to try to force you to install the messenger app (opening up the Google Play store every time you opened a message) they eventually annoyed me enough to close down my Facebook account. It's not as if they are removing the messenger functionality from their site - my understanding is that it will remain on the desktop site. For me this was a final straw. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Why did the XMPP/Jabber open protocol fail?

[schweini]

A couple of years ago, I was very hopeful that open chat protocols would win - we had Google Talk, WhatsApp, etc. using XMPP (the Jabber protocol) behind the scenes. Some allowed federation (server-to-server connections, allowing inter-network messanges), some didn't. Google was opening libJingle for open source voice (and video?) chats. The demise of closed chat networks seemed imminent.

But somehow, everything went backwards, and now we have dozens of competing IM networks, all with their own incompatible apps and protocols, competing for users, yet again.
Anyone have an idea how that happened?