The Facebook Messenger app for Android will soon drop support for SMS messages. In a new support article (via 9to5Google), Meta announced that Android users who’ve been using the SMS integration in Facebook Messenger will lose this feature after September 28.
“If you use Messenger as your default SMS messaging app for your Android device, please note you will no longer be able to use Messenger to send and receive SMS messages sent by your cellular network when you update your app after September 28, 2023.
You will still be able to send and receive SMS messages through your cellular network and access your SMS message history through your phone’s new default messaging app,” the company explained.
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If Facebook Messenger users don’t pick up a new default SMS messaging app after the SMS integration goes away, text messages will end up in Google’s Android Messages app by default. This app offers support for RCS messaging, the new carrier-supported standard that provides modern messaging features such as high-res photos, read receipts, and more, and it’s also more secure than SMS. However, Apple still doesn’t support RCS on iOS.
By offering SMS support in Facebook Messenger, Meta tried to offer an all-in-one messaging experience to Android users. However, most people with a smartphone today juggle between different messaging apps, as inconvenient as that may be.
Back in October, the popular messaging app Signal also dropped SMS support from its Android app. As Signal offers end-to-end encryption by default, the company explained at the time that it no longer made sense to support SMS, a decades-old technology that doesn’t offer any privacy or security features.
Do you still use SMS messages in 2023? Sound off in the comments below.
Laurent is the Senior News Editor at Thurrott.com. He’s been writing about the tech industry for many years and his favorite topics to cover include Big Tech, media, and gaming. He’s also the Editorial Manager of the Petri IT knowledgebase.
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