[Technology] Rumor: Facebook Working on OS X Messenger App

[lioneatszebra]

Rumor: Facebook Working on OS X Messenger App
from PC World

Somewhere, somehow, there's a spy in Facebook. Or, at least, some Facebook employee was foolish enough to leave his or her screen just open enough for anyone to see and take pictures of, which is exactly what someone did. The reason? Facebook Messenger for OS X. Such an app does not yet exist for public consumption, but it's allegedly something that Facebook is working on—or so the photograph sent to TechCrunch indicates.

You're probably wondering why this even matters, especially if you're one of the many, many people who use Facebook the conventional way: You open a Web browser, you browse around the site, and you chat with your friends using its built-in messaging features. Easy as that. If you're especially crafty, you might even just use good ol' messenger.com if you want to be able to chat with your friends without being tempted by any of Facebook's other distractions.

Well, it's also convenient to load up a third-party app instead of opening your Web browser at all, especially if you're the type who doesn't want to have to switch back and forth between tabs to reply to conversations. Windows has a Facebook Messenger app that you can grab through the Windows Store (which apparently isn't very good). Apple fans, however, have no official option from Facebook that they can use—not yet, at least.

According to TechCrunch, said mystery app on the Facebook employee's screen apparently had its own special Messenger icon within the Facebook user's OS X dock, and the app itself was called "Messenger"—go figure—in its menu bar. In the provided picture, the app appears to have a navigation tab bar in its lower-left corner that looks a lot like the tab bar you'd tap on within Facebook's iOS app. The options are allegedly the same too: Recent, Groups, People, and Settings. Facebook also doesn't appear to be testing this app in any kind of public way just yet, as said employee was logged into Facebook's VPN when the picture was shot.

The downside to all of this sleuthing—aside from the obvious problem that it's a pretty jerk move to take a picture of someone's screen when they aren't looking—is that Facebook might not release any kind of OS X app for Messenger whatsoever. Whatever it's working on or testing might just end right there: as a test, or even an internal product, but not an official public release. The company has previously dabbled with a desktop Messenger app for Windows, but the app didn't last very long. Facebook killed it rather unceremoniously after two years.

That said, there are still a number of third-party apps you can use to access Messenger in OS X right now, if you don't want to wait for Facebook's solution—or don't think it'll ever launch.