A lovely login screen. Followed by a not very well explained request for my mobile phone number, so they can send me a text that has a link to Facebook that makes me login again.
All to log in to my Facebook account, which I am already logged in to in the Facebook app on the same phone.
Aside from the fact that it's entirely redundant and ignorant of an Android feature meant specifically to appease people who hate repetitiously entering their account credentials. The Facebook Proper app even uses AccountManager properly. Messenger should prompt for permission to access the device's Facebook account and I shouldn't have to retype my credentials. It's the entire point of that API.
I'm sorry, but I'm not typing in my 25 character secure password for another device that will confuse Facebook's Messaging client. I've missed two messages in the last week because it notified me somewhere and then didn't notify me on my desktop when I returned. I just happened to notice because I click on Messages to compose a new one.
Does anyone know if they sync your contacts to their server? I know the Facebook app on the iPhone has a button to sync them, but a messaging app that relies on your contact list seems like it might just make that assumption and automatically do it.
You might wonder how we match up your Facebook friends with your contacts so you don't see duplicates in the list: with Messenger, instead of doing it on the server, matching and de-duplicating of Facebook friends and local address book contacts is all done on the client.
The only time Messenger will send a phone number from your local address book to the server is when you use Messenger to send an SMS message to:
1) A non-Facebook user, or
2) A Facebook user who doesn't have a mobile contact point already on the server
I'm disappointed this is for Android 2.2 and up. Not all of us Android users have that available nor are we finished our contracts that allow us to upgrade to a new device.
Facebook should have made it compatible with at least 2.0/2.1.
Facebook on Android is a consistently bad experience. What's worse, I occasionally deactivate my account for periods of time to focus on school / work /etc. The app comes pre-installed on my HTC so I can't remove it. However, it keeps trying to authenticate and randomly gives me can't-authenticate errors or launches the browser to a facebook login. Pretty disappointing experience.
The design and how it works when it works is pretty good in my opinion, but stuff like what you mention is making me hate the facebook app with a passion. If I get for example a "1 new message" notification, and I press it, nine out of ten times nothing will happen or the app will open to a blank messaging screen, showing nothing (and will stay that way).
I really hope they start to bring this type of experience to Facebook for iPhone.