The Daily App: Facebook Messenger for iPhone

A free download from the Apple iTunes App Store, Facebook Messenger supports photo-sharing via Facebook message, it supports group messaging, and it supports push notifications to let you know when a Facebook contact is pinging you.

As Facebook becomes more ubiquitous as a messaging platform, simply using the native Facebook app for IM stops short of Facebook Messenger. Developed by Facebook itself, the company has figured out that by shredding other aspects of the service from messaging would make communicating via iPhone a much easier, straightforward and more productive process.

A couple of caveats you may want to consider: it’s easy to forget you’ve got the app set to show your lists of friends that you’re online and available for messages, meaning you could find yourself receiving Facebook messages at inconvenient times. Also, the great feature that allows you to tag your location in messages to friends can become a not-so-great feature if you forget to shut it off and it drains your battery.

But, all things considered, Facebook has made it easy to use its service as a nice IM service as well – meaning you can keep conversations going a lot easier as you switch from desktop to iPhone throughout your day.