Tech and Social Media giant Facebook Inc., is reportedly pulling its apps for the Windows phone platform at the end of this month; April 2019.
The company (Facebook) has already began alerting Instagram users on Windows this week, that the app will be removed on the 30th of April. This is according to Windows Phone Reddit users who made this known after receiving notifications about the development.
Instagram, is however not the only app going away. According to Engadget, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that Facebook is dropping support for all of its apps on Windows phone on April 30 as well, including its flagship app and Facebook Messenger.
The remaining users will have to resort to browsing Facebook and Instagram on their browsers or alternatively, pinning Instagram’s web app to your Start screen for easy access.
Since the launch of the Lumia phones, it has been a big roller coaster for Windows Phone users, as the phones lacked official apps from social media giants. Because of this users had to resort to poorly made third-party apps up until the likes of Facebook brought their apps to the Windows phone store. Now it looks like this is a return to the not so good old days. The only difference is, the situation now, is far more dire, as the third-party apps left the Windows store since as far back as 2015.
Facebook’s apps have been the most popular free apps for the Windows phone platform and the social media giant’s decision to remove its apps from the platform, is going to hurt the remaining users. The Windows Phone platform has however been on a downward spiral since Microsoft’s announcement that it was killing it off in 2016 as a result of low sales that are affecting even the existing big player smartphone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung.
Some diehard users who have stuck with Windows phone for various reasons like their preference to the devices’ cameras, privacy issues with iOS and Android or Facebook itself. The discontinuation of software and security updates from last year December 2018 (Windows 10 Mobile version 1703 support ends in June and version 1709 ends in December) has put a further dent on the reliability of the devices as there could now potentially be massive loopholes for hackers.
As with Instagram, the alternative for anyone continuing to use a Windows 10 Mobile device will be to visit each site on the web through the mobile browser. It’s unclear with currently available information whether this will impact the Windows 10 apps, but it doesn’t appear as if that will be the case.
If you are a windows user looking for alternatives, post about ‘3 Smartphones By Tecno You Should Consider in 2019‘ (https://nexbitke.com/3-smartphones-by-tecno-you-should-consider-in-2019/) as well as our article ‘Apple’s iPhones and Longevity‘, with a focus on the iPhone 6s (https://nexbitke.com/apples-iphones-and-longevity/)
