Amidst reports that pretty soon, the BlackBerry 10 and BBOS will cease to exist at some point in the future, the OEM claims that fans are still fighting for them (at least through hashtags like #WeAreBlackBerry and #ILoveBB10Apps). They are downplaying what seems to be a significant action from Facebook by saying that the social network still lives in their OS, but now, it will be through a web-based app which will bring more features that you can use as compared to the native app previously.
That’s the official story of course, that Facebook can still be found on devices running on BlackBerry at least on the browser. But the real story is of course that Facebook has actually pulled out support for their app/apps running on the OS and instead will be available on the Android-powered BlackBerry Priv. This is an indication that BB10 is actually on its last legs, despite protestations from the OEM itself.
The web-based Facebook app actually has more features that you couldn’t find in the native app like the ability to reply to comments and to see replies to comments. Now if you’ve been on Android for some time now, you would think that’s a pretty common thing right? Just goes to show how outdated the BB FB app was. The app that you can view on the browser will also not show anymore the “news feed could not be retrieved” popup. And of course, all the other features that web-based users enjoy on FB will be here in the app.
The good news is that you’ve now removed the app that causes a lot of battery drainage on your device. The Facebook app will stop working by March 31 so make sure that you’ve explored the web-based app already so there will be no adjustment.
SOURCE: BlackBerry
The plan always was that the next version of Facebook for BB10 was going to be a link to the web based version. So what? This is not big deal at all but for some reason the media is keying in on this insignificant turn of events. I can still get full Facebook functionality on my BB10 device by using the web browser. Almost nothing has changed, I am not blocked or denied Facebook in any way. I just cannot use the Facebook app which is a blessing to me because it was an intrusive app.