The great thing about apps is that it’s all right there. There’s no navigating to a certain website and trying to find the right section or page of the website. With an app it’s all right there. But now social networks are forcing you to download more than just one app to access all the functions. How do you feel about social networks forcing you to download more apps?
Facebook has done it to us before, and now they’re doing it again. We used to be able to chat with our friends within the app, but then they separated it so that we had to have a separate Messenger app. And now they’re going to do that with your synced photos. Some users automatically sync the photos on their phones with Facebook. But they won’t be able to do it anymore unless they have the new Moments app. Additionally, unless you download and use that app, you will lose all those photos that you have already synced.
However, Facebook’s strategy worked. The app became the number one app in Apple’s App Store after they warned users that they’d be losing their photos. While it’s great for them, is that an okay business practice? Should social networks be able to split their functions into different apps like that? Free or not, it’s still taking up more valuable space on your device, and it does make it a hair more difficult, as now you have to jump back and forth between apps instead of doing it all within one app.
How do you feel about this practice? Are you okay with having to download different apps for all the different functions of a social network. Or does this bother you? Will you stop using a social network if it starts breaking up its services into different apps?
Laura has spent nearly 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with more than 10 of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past three decades. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.
Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox
