Revealed: Facebook Messenger for iPad, iPhone app with video chat in the works
While Facebook has focused on smartphones for its standalone Facebook Messenger app, the company is currently developing a version for the Apple iPad. A reliable source has provided an in-depth look …
Context & Ripple Effects
The report lands in a tense stretch of Facebook-Apple history: last September the full Facebook iPad app was still snagged in negotiations between the two companies over how deeply the social network could integrate into Apple's tablet. A native Messenger build for the device would route around that fight by living inside the App Store like any other app.
It also arrives weeks after Microsoft-owned Skype's own arrival on the iPad, which set the template for tablet video calling, and just as Facebook enters the final stages of a public offering — the roadshow reportedly starting Monday with an IPO date said to be May 18 — making any evidence of a serious mobile roadmap unusually market-sensitive. The story's pickup across eight outlets including The Verge, BuzzFeed and Gizmodo reflects that appetite.
First-order effects
- If the sourced screenshots hold up, Facebook extends its standalone messaging brand beyond smartphones to the iPad, giving tablet owners a first-party chat client independent of the main Facebook app whose Apple negotiations had stalled.
- Adding video calling to the iPhone Messenger app would put Facebook in direct functional competition with FaceTime and Skype on Apple's own devices.
Second-order effects
- Skype and Microsoft now face a rival bundling video chat into a social graph of hundreds of millions of users at no extra charge on hardware they already support.
- Apple gains another argument for tightening control of its messaging surface — iMessage — as third-party networks colonize iOS devices one app at a time.
Third-order effects
- Messaging is consolidating into standalone, cross-platform products decoupled from the main social feed — a structure where the chat network itself, not the profile page, is the strategic asset Facebook takes to public investors.
- If the pattern holds, every major consumer internet company will be pushed to maintain dedicated clients per device category, with tablet-specific design becoming table stakes rather than a scaled-up phone app.
The trend: Standalone messaging apps are expanding from phones onto every screen — tablets next — turning real-time communication into the battleground where social platforms, carriers of video like Skype, and device makers converge.