After announcing last week that a series of new features will come to their messenger app, Facebook has finally updated the app for Android devices. Despite the company announcing that the changes will be coming to other platforms as well, so far only the Android app has been updated. And not even that has seen the full update. Read on to find out more about how to use Facebook Messenger’s multiple accounts feature.
Facebook’s Messenger app
If you’ve read previous articles on the subject, you might remember how Facebook promised full SMS support on their Messenger app as part of their attempt to get rid of phone numbers. Along with that, they also promised something not many really cared about, despite the company’s claims to the contrary.
And of course, the least important feature is here, with no signs of implementing the SMS feature any time soon. But hey, at least Facebook also promised us ads in the Messenger app starting with a few updates from now, so we’ve got that going for us, which is great. But since the only thing we got were multiple accounts on the Messenger app, let’s talk about how to use those.
According to Facebook, hundreds of millions of people worldwide share their phones and tablets with family members and friends, so why not do the same with the Messenger app? Despite their claim, the only examples the company gave were parents letting their children talk to their friends from their accounts, and companies using the same account for different users talking to clients separately.
How it works
As expected, the functionality is pretty simple. You go through the settings of your Messenger account and select – what else? – Accounts. From there you can add all the accounts that you want to use your app. When logging in for the first time, you will be asked for a password, which you can then choose to either fill out every time, or just once. The same can be done for all accounts on the app.
Removing your account is just as simple, with all you have to do being to go to the Accounts option and handle it from there. If you’re thinking that it’s not something too complicated, you’re right. This most likely took very little to implement, and won’t have nearly as much use as Facebook claims it will.
Maybe the soon to come ads won’t actually be arriving before the SMS feature is implemented, but chances are that they will. If this is to be the case, people will probably start moving back to WhatsApp, now that the $1 subscription is gone, unless it also gets the ad treatment.
Image source: Flickr
