Facebook's new Messenger mobile app may be the top download in app stores, but it's not the top rated as users learning about the new app, and how much access it demands to a user's phone features and data, aren't too pleased.
The big complaint, though, appears to be the fact that the new app isn't superior to the old in-app app Facebook members had been using.
While Facebook gave the head's up on the change back in early spring, and then make a bigger declaration in early July, users are just starting to make the transition. Facebook claims the new app will be faster and more reliable.
But in exchange for those improvements mobile users will be giving up quite a bit of access to smartphone features and data access. So far reports claim the app has more than 200 million monthly users.
The app in the iOS App Store currently boasts a one-star rating.
Users are complaining about everything from the need for a standalone app to the provision that users provide the app access to the camera and microphone. One user calls it a "pointless waste of space," and "designed to be as obnoxious as possible."
Others aren't thrilled that the app, for some inexplicable reason, is able to make calls without the user's permission and send SMS messages without the user's intervention. It can even alter network connectivity. All these actions, claim users, could then draw unwanted costs and charges.
The app can also record the user without permission, take photos and videos and even access the phone call log, check out contact data and determine who the user calls frequently or emailed the most.
Supposedly the app needs all this access to perform the features outside of messaging and to make it easier for the user to send a video while in chat.
As Tech Times reported last week the app is even granted the ability keep the phone from sleeping and conserving battery life, which obviously isn't going over well with iOS users given the iPhone's already controversial battery life issues.
