Facebook introduces SMS within Messenger on Android

Facebook is again trying its hand at SMS. Its Messenger platform has introduced SMS support on Android devices. The feature is not available for Apple users because iOS doesn’t support app permissions for accessing text messages/SMS, according to Facebook.

This is not the first time that Messenger has experimented with SMS but the company claims it has become much easier to support text messages within Messenger on Android.

Facebook says that the feature is an attempt to integrate friends sending GIFs on Messenger with parents only using SMS. The SMS feature will support standard text, images, videos, and audio. Facebook promises that it will also support rich content like stickers, emojis, and location sharing.

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“We want to make it easier to stay in touch with all the people you care about. We hope that this new choice will bring the convenience of being able to access all your messages in one place, making your messaging a lot simpler and helping you stay on top of your conversations,” the company said.

The idea on Facebook’s part is not any different to most of the products it has launched in the past, trying to keep users within its platforms. Thus, SMS support is a bid to prevent users from going to another app to check them.

To use the feature, users need to go to the settings on Messenger and select SMS and make it their default SMS app. To differentiate between Messenger chat and SMS, the text messages will be purple and the Messenger conversations will be in blue.