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Between the God-awful performance of the Facebook web site itself (on my 2018 15" MacBook Pro i9/32GB RAM/512 GB SSD, it still manages to make the fans spin. Lo
by lostgame 8y ago
Between the God-awful performance of the Facebook web site itself (on my 2018 15" MacBook Pro i9/32GB RAM/512 GB SSD, it still manages to make the fans spin. Loud.), and the ludicrous file size of the Facebook app, any developer worth their salt would actually have to wonder if optimization is something Facebook actively ignores.
Ever since Facebook unnecessarily divided their application into two, (Facebook and Messenger), I've pretty much sworn off it. But there's one simple reason, beyond the constant privacy concerns, that no single person should consider putting this app on their iOS device.
Facebook's iOS app currently sits at a staggering, literally almost unbelievable 316.7MB! Yes, 316.7MB. Almost a third of a GB. What. The. Hell.
Messenger is 139.4MB! What on earth QA process do these guys have where they consider this to be even remotely okay on non-storage-expandable devices, especially in the days where we still had 8GB iPhones?
On an 8GB iPhone, (which I understand are not in a lot of use at the moment, but still), which ends up having closer to 6-7GB of space, that would mean that Facebook + Messenger alone would take up 1/10th-1/14th of your space.
I miss the days when there was a 50MB-100MB limit on applications being downloaded over 3G/LTE/cellular. This was fantastic. Every company I worked for demanded I was able to trim the application size down to under 100MB so that there was a fair chance for everyone to be able to download it.
Many of my friends are still on 16GB iPhones and the size alone is the first reason they remove the app.
The second reason being the functionality offered does not match the app size.
The third reason being the general public is starting to visibly see the lack of value Facebook adds in our lives, and even the toxicity of the addiction of constantly scrolling.
You can do almost everything you can do within the Facebook app simply by logging into Facebook on your browser.
Protip (source: I am an iOS developer of 8+ years): If you'd like people to use and keep your application on their device that usually has extremely limited storage capacity, or at least non-expandable storage, you'd better ensure the application actually offers a significant value over that of not having the application installed.
Messenger's video chat, et cetera, makes it worthwhile. But it's also three times as small as the Facebook app. So, while Facebook's application provides almost no value at more than 300MB, Messenger is able to pack infinitely more functionality into 1/3rd the size.
What the hell are these guys doing wrong? Where's QA?
- lambda_lover 8y agoDon't worry: they've been slowly hobbling the mobile site to make the application more and more attractive. iirc you can't even message on the normal (non-basic) mobile site any more: it just shows a splash screen requesting that you download messenger. And of course their site uses screen dimensions and user agents to decide to force you onto mobile even if you request desktop.
- gagege 8y agoYou can if you use Opera Mini, for some reason.
- jleedev 8y agoJavascript-free mobile site that lets you send messages: https://d.facebook.com https://d.facebook.com
- lostgame 8y agoA nice hack around that is using their GSM site.
- petepete 8y agoIt's worse than that. Even if you check the "Desktop site" box on Chrome for Android, every time you type a word in the messenger box and press space, it's deleted. You have to go a long way to make anything that bad, it can't be accidental.
- bradlys 8y agoYou can still get to it via normal means. You don't have to use the desktop site. What you do is go to facebook.com, check the "desktop site" option in the browser... page refreshes, you're in "mobile view" still (m.facebook.com), click messages icon.... now you're able to message people just fine. Works fine for me. I use Brave (which is not much different than Chrome on Android). It's a clumsy experience but it works.
- woolvalley 8y agoCode size is a function of engineer and feature count, since each engineer makes x lines of code per day. For example, there is a craigslist app in fb, a city guide app, an events app and so on, things that could be separate apps and companies on their own.