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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Facebook for BlackBerry Lives On

It appears that the reports of the death of Facebook for BlackBerry have been greatly exaggerated.

BlackBerry senior marketing manager, developer relations Lou Gazzola clarified in a blog post that while the social network will no longer support its native application for BBOS and BlackBerry 10, an updated, Web-based app has been created.

In a blog post earlier this month, Gazzola wrote:

The app landscape continues to evolve, and in ways that are not always within our control. Recently, Facebook made the decision to discontinue support of its essential APIs (application-programming interfaces) for BlackBerry, and WhatsApp announced that it would end support for BlackBerry 10 and BBOS at the end of 2016.

We are extremely disappointed in their decision, as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision stands (but let them know how you feel on social media, using the hashtag #ILoveBB10Apps). Despite this, we have worked hard to ensure that our end-users have the best experience in light of this decision, and we are continuing to search for alternate solutions.

An alternate solution has apparently been reached, as Gazzola wrote Tuesday:

There has been much news regarding our recent blog post about Great Apps on BlackBerry, and I want to clarify that Facebook will continue to support BlackBerry 10 and BBOS. The experience will be slightly different, but you’ll still get the same Facebook features you love. And, of course the full Android Facebook app is available on the PRIV by BlackBerry.

For those just hearing about this news, we have an updated Web-based Facebook app that replaces the native app for BlackBerry 10 and BBOS. The update is required because the native app will stop working March 31. The new Web-based Facebook app provides additional features not available on the native app, such as:

  • The ability to reply to comments and see replies to comments.
  • All posts should be loaded–no more, “News Feed could not be retrieved,” or, “Post could not be loaded” messages (unless the post was actually removed).
  • Any features available to Facebook website users will be available to you in the updated application.

We’ll continue to keep you updated of any new developments. To transition to the Web-based experience March 31, visit BlackBerry World on your device and apply the available update for the Facebook application at the following links:

For more information, please visit the support page.

BlackBerry users: What is your reaction to this news?

FacebookForBlackBerry10

Image of businesswoman courtesy of Shutterstock.



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