Facebook’s Messenger app went from being a really simple way to communicate with your family and friends to a slow, cluttered experience over the last few years. Since 2018, Facebook has been working to reverse some of that mess, introducing a redesigned interface.

And this year, the company is taking that a step further and is introducing a new, rewritten mobile app for iOS devices to not only be simpler but also be faster and smaller.

Facebook is making a big deal out of the new app, codenamed Project LightSpeed, which significantly improves the usability of teh app. The company says the new app will load twice as fast than before and is apparently one-fourth the size of the original app.

The company has rewritten so much of the app that the codebase was reduced by 84% — bringing the number of lines of code from 1.7 million to 360,000. The features on the app have also been rebuilt to fit a “new, simplified infrastructure”, allowing the app to be smaller and more responsive.

Facebook is taking away some features of Messenger with this update, most notably the Discover tab. “As part of the rebuild, a few features will be temporarily unavailable, but we’re working to bring them back soon,” the company said.

Here’s the thing, though: this new re-written app is more than just about Messenger itself. According to Facebook, the new app lays the foundation for the promised encryption features in Messenger, and the company’s effort to unify all its messaging services. 

Tagged with Facebook Messenger, Messenger