At Facebook’s F8 developer conference in 2019, the company announced plans to introduce desktop apps for its popular Messenger communications app. Now, less than a year later, the Messenger The Mac application begins to deploy. Although not yet available in the U.S., Messenger for Mac has made an appearance in the Mac App Store in several non-U.S. markets.
We asked Facebook to confirm if this signals a larger deployment that will include the United States.
A spokesperson for the company replied that it was not yet a full launch.
“We are testing the Messenger application for macOS in a few markets,” said the spokesperson. “We do not have a date when it will be available because we are still collecting feedback from our users,” they added.
9to5Mac and iPhone Hacks first spotted the launch of the application, referring to an article published on a French technology news site called MacGeneration. However, you can visit the URL of the French Mac App Store directly to confirm.
We have also seen Messenger arrive in a few other international markets, including Mexico, Poland and Australia, for example. (There may be more – we haven’t clicked on each Mac App Store’s links yet to confirm them one by one.)
The desktop version of Messenger offers a set of features similar to the mobile client, including support for voice and video chat, in addition to SMS. Group chats, calls, and video chats are also available. And like the mobile app, users can share files, react with emojis, and activate a dark theme to reduce glare.
The application is built using Electron, not Catalyst. While Electron is a popular way to create desktop apps from a web app, but not the safest at all.
The app’s arrival comes just days after Facebook introduced its faster, thinner Messenger app for iOS. The new mobile app removes the Discover section to simplify the app interface and redirects the Messenger experience around people and stories, not companies and apps.
Facebook recently announced the cancellation of this year’s F8 conference due to the coronavirus epidemic. It could mean that we will see more Facebook news and launches than he would have otherwise expected to reveal.