Behind Facebook's rewrite of Messenger, going live today, that has shrunk the iOS app's size from 130MB to 30MB and its codebase from 1.7M to 360K lines of code
To make its iPhone messaging app run better—especially on older phones—Facebook rewrote it from the ground up. The new version is going live now.
Fast Company Harry McCracken
Related Coverage
- Introducing a Faster, Smaller and Simpler Messenger About Facebook · Raymond Endres
- Project LightSpeed: Rewriting the Messenger codebase for a faster, smaller, and simpler messaging app Facebook Engineering
- Facebook's Redesigned iOS Messenger App Features Twice as Fast Performance, 75 Percent Smaller Size Wccftech · Ali Salman
- Facebook completely overhauls Messenger on iOS to make it faster and lighter Mashable · Stan Schroeder
- Facebook Gets Native App Religion Daring Fireball · John Gruber
- Messenger update: Facebook reveals entirely new version of app that is ‘quarter of the size and twice as fast’ The Independent · Andrew Griffin
- Facebook redesigns its Messenger app to prioritise ‘Stories’ … Daily Mail · Jonathan Chadwick
- The new Facebook Messenger for iOS is much faster and takes less space on your phone The Verge · Jay Peters
- Facebook Launches Rebuilt Messenger App to Be Smaller and Faster Thurrott · Mehedi Hassan
- Facebook rebuilds Messenger iOS app to be faster, simpler CNET · Abrar Al-Heeti
- Facebook's rebuilt Messenger is a big step towards unifying its chat apps Engadget · Karissa Bell
- Facebook revamps Messenger, cuts code from 1.7 million lines to 360,000 ZDNet · Stephanie Condon
- Facebook introduces its new Messenger app for iOS based on Project LightSpeed [Update] Neowin · João Carrasqueira
- Facebook announces a faster, smaller and simpler Messenger app for iOS devices MSPoweruser · Pradeep
- Facebook launches new iOS Messenger app with redesign, 2x faster, and 75% smaller 9to5Mac · Michael Potuck
- New Facebook Messenger app is simpler, and twice as fast BetaNews · Wayne Williams
- Facebook Messenger on iOS is now twice as fast and a quarter the size The Next Web · Napier Lopez
Discussion
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@sandofsky
Ben Sandofsky
on x
The Facebook engineering blog goes into detail about the smaller, faster, Messenger. This section seems to say, “We don't use React Native,” without explicitly saying it. https://engineering.fb.com/... https://twitter.com/...
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@dhh
@dhh
on x
Did Facebook just kill off React Native? Either way, it's funny that I actually agree. We write all our hybrid shells with the native platform tooling (and then fill them with server-rendered HTML using Turbolinks!). Full control to level up UI to native. https://engineering.fb.c…
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@koush
@koush
on x
@dhh Lol these guys just wrote a blog post about how the rediscovered native platform APIs
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@jota
Jota Melo
on x
Rather than reinventing the wheel, we used the UI framework available on the device's native OS to support a wider variety of application feature needs r i s o s https://twitter.com/...
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@benawad
Ben Awad
on x
I was kind of curious if FB would end up using ReasonML on the app too with React Native, but doesn't look like that's going to happen https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
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@rachelnabors
Rachel Nabors
on x
Given how many people joined our team last year, no. @reactnative is still very much alive and growing and used on 750 screens at Facebook. Wake me up when the hot takes are over, thanks! https://twitter.com/...
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@cmuratori
Casey Muratori
on x
Very frustrating to see web teams bragging about programming the way we told them to back when they were constantly claiming native coders were wrong about how to program. You could have just listened and done this 10+ years ago? #FUSV https://engineering.fb.com/...
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@browniefed
Jason Brown
on x
Facebook: Writes some code that isn't React Native. Everyone: “Did Facebook just kill React Native” https://twitter.com/...
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@krausefx
Felix Krause
on x
“The new Facebook Messenger is twice as fast to start and is one-fourth the size” “We accomplished this by using the native OS wherever possible (...)” Yah surprise https://engineering.fb.com/...
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@tomocchino
Tom Occhino
on x
React Native is used by many teams at Facebook. LightSpeed had intense constraints and is an awesome engineering achievement. Writing the core in C and leveraging the platform as much as possible was the right call for them. https://twitter.com/...
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@mengxilu
Mengxi Lu
on x
Reading between the lines here, sounds like the new FB Messenger app completely ditched React Native? “... we reduced core Messenger code by 84 percent, from more than 1.7M lines to 360,000.” “... using the native OS wherever possible” https://engineering.fb.com/...
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@schemetrical
Yichen Cao
on x
Facebook discovers UIKit: “The native frameworks don't have to be translated into sub-frameworks.” “Rather than reinventing the wheel, we used the UI framework available on the device's native OS to support a wider variety of application feature needs.” https://engineering.fb.com…
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@wongmjane
Jane Manchun Wong
on x
What Facebook didn't tell you, is that MSYS will be the core technology for powering end-to-end encrypted communication across Facebook products, including Instagram and WhatsApp http://engineering.fb.com/...
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@fb_engineering
@fb_engineering
on x
To make Messenger faster, smaller, and simpler, we started from the ground up with a new client core and server framework. We've advanced our own state-of-the-art technologies and rewritten the codebase to be sustainable and scalable for the next decade. https://engineering.fb.co…
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@kantrowitz
Alex Kantrowitz
on x
I'm glad Messenger is faster. Now Facebook should get to work on a more important improvement: allowing you to delete your messages en masse, and giving you a disappearing messages option. https://twitter.com/...