Fb Messenger’s Apple Watch app can be discontinued on the finish of this month, in accordance with Meta, ending the power for customers to answer to messages on the service from their wrist.
Posts shared on social media carried a screenshot of a notification despatched to a handful of customers in current days informing them that Messenger will not be accessible as an Apple Watch app after Might 31, however that customers would proceed to get Messenger notifications on their watch.
Not all customers of the app acquired the notification, however when requested for clarification by Reviewgeek, a Meta spokesperson gave the next assertion:
“Individuals can nonetheless obtain Messenger notifications on their Apple Watch when paired, however beginning on the finish of Might they are going to now not be capable of reply from their watch. However they’ll proceed utilizing Messenger on their iPhone, desktop and the online.”
Meta didn’t give a cause for its choice to sundown its Messenger app for Apple Watch, which was launched in 2015. The app allowed customers to ship voice clips, likes, stickers, and extra with out having to open the corresponding smartphone app.
Some customers on Fb urged it may very well be as a result of permitting customers to reply to messages on their wrist decreased the quantity of display screen time spent in Messenger on their smartphone. However the app joins an extended line of different third-party companies which have pulled watchOS growth over the previous few years, both attributable to perceived redundancy or lack of person uptake. Different notable Apple Watch apps which have been discontinued embrace Twitter, Instagram, Goal, Trello, Slack, Hulu, and Uber.
Apple over time has steadily shifted away from selling the Apple Watch as a house for apps, with the corporate specializing in health and well being options as the first performance. Current rumors recommend Apple intends to make interactive widgets a giant a part of its watchOS 10 redesign, which has been interpreted as proof that devoted apps haven’t proved standard sufficient.
Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman believes that the transfer is an admission that an iPhone-like app expertise “does not all the time make sense on a watch” since “Apple Watch apps have barely caught on.” Nonetheless, attributable to being a radical departure from the app-centric expertise current Apple Watch customers are used to, Apple could make the brand new widget-based interface non-obligatory.
The adjustments are a part of what Gurman claims can be one of many Apple Watch’s greatest software program updates since its introduction and essentially the most important change to the Apple Watch this 12 months, as solely minor {hardware} updates are anticipated to be unveiled later this 12 months.
