Astro for Facebook Messenger App Reviews

Decent app, works, but I would like to change the app font not just the chat window font. It looks too messy with such huge font.

I am using a 13’ macbook, so the font size is really small for me, especially which of Chinese characters. It would be much better if there is adjustable font size and typeface for English and Chinese characters. However the app is generally good. Nice work!

I really wanted this app to be great. It just disappointed me repeatedly. It doesn’t have the level of UI polish that Mac users expect. 1. Issues with their network/API stack. There are some issues retrieving chats for certain friends. For several friends, the chat history would continue to load infinitely and never finish. It’s understandable; they’re using private APIs, and stuff is likely to break. 2. The text entry box is HUGE and can’t be reduced to a reasonable size. (Minimum appears to be 25% of the window height!) 3. The default 3-pane design is cluttered and not very intelligent. There is no reason for Online to be in a separate list. Look at Facebook Messenger for iPad for an intelligent tab design. 4. The bottom of the window is littered with unnecessary icons – settings, view management, online/offline status. That’s what the menu bar is for. (And I don’t need to see “Press Enter to send” in every tab. 5. The visual design just doesn’t feel like high-quality. The fonts in the conversation list are oddly non-standard. An ugly “X” icon appears when hovering over every tab. The default font size for conversations is gigantic. The sticker window looks like a throwback from 10 years ago. 6. There’s almost nothing in the menu bar, or keyboard shortcuts for anything. All of the functionality is shoved into different corners of the UI — right-click menus and such. The expected Mac keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Cmd-W to close a conversation tab, Ctrl-Tab or Cmd-Shift-] to change tab) don’t work as expected. 7. During start, there’s an ugly splash screen and loading status - not very Mac. The dev needs to stop adding feature bloat (annotated screenshot tool? menu bar icon? themes? customizable selection background color? Mr. Potato Head build-your-own user interface studio?) and focus on polishing this app and improving the details of the experience. It looks like they might benefit from teaming up with a UI designer who has experience designing for the Mac platform. At this point, I just prefer using Facebooks web app for messages instead of this app. Astro wasn’t the native-feeling Facebook Messenger experience that I was hoping for.

I’ve been flipping through a ton of messengers in hopes for one similar to the Facebook Desktop messenger and this one hits it right on the money. It’s the closest I’ve found and I can actually see my chat history on facebook. 10/10 would recommend. Just hope for more sound and font options. The font is a big large but I can deal with that.

What is wrong with this app… it keeps on shutting down. getting really frustrating… I like the idea but i think its not really ready for primetime yet… too bad I bought is before I checked it out. :(

I’m on a macbook pro and I need a magic mouse to be able to scroll through the stickers in order to use them. I regret paying money for this program.

When I updated, it seems to crash constantly. I think it has to do with notifications. Please Fix!

Fixes that have worked: setting that are inside the messanger window instead of having to go to the tools menu my screen capture had been working again again thank you for making it available to get rid of the docking messages are syncing again Problems: Messanger shuts down as soon as i leave the messanger window, this is a recent bug, but it is very frustrating also not sure where these random events/notifications come from, but when i click them it does not take me to the notification. these either need to lead to the notification or have a tab for it. Thanks!

This app worked fine until this version. Even with a clean wipe and re-install, it crashes as soon as Facebook authenticates. I wouldn’t recommend it until it is fixed — which it hasn’t for several days.

I have wanted a good FB messenger app for a while. I like everything about this app except that it crashes a lot. Like every 5 min.

Astro worked great till the last update. Now it won’t stay open when I open it. Hope they fix this issue quick. Love the app… when it’s working.

Crashes right away. I did a clean install and it’s still happening!

It crashes at startup after I login… so it was a complete waste of money… *sigh

I have learned to rely on this program, but with the new update, it won’t stay open longer than 10 seconds. I don’t recommend it.

This app is actually nice. But the “waiting for Facebook” appear all the time, although it still functional. And I feel laggy

I like the way Astro works. It delivers on its promise. I can chat with all my friends and family and most importantly, I can chat in group conversations, which I think Astro is the only desktop app to support. I’ve tried setting up Adium and Apple Messages and I don’t get group chats, which is a feature I use every day. The issue that prevents me from using Astro is that I sent a lot of links to my friends (who doesn’t?), and for some reason, Facebook blocks those links, without Astro telling me about it. The first few time I asked my friends why they weren’t following up on my links. After checking the Facebook web interface, I noticed the links weren’t showing in the conversation. When I sent them through the web interface, I got asked to completed a captcha, every single time, for every link. Because of that I stopped using Astro and eventually Facebook stopped prompting me to complete the captcha. It was fine until I downloaded Astro again and the issue came back. Facebook probably thinks that so many links sent in that short amount of time is spam, coming from a third party app, and blocks them. So I’m back to using the web interface, which is a pain because it’s not a great interface. I’m thinking of trying out Google Hangout again, see if they improved.

I’ve used this app for quite a while now and have watched it grow. I love using it and the concept of it and everything, but lately it has crashed my entire system on more than one occassion. What happens is, even though I have chosen in my computer settings and in the app settings to NOT launch on startup, the application always tries to do so, and it ends up freezing and giving me a spinning wheel endlessly. Fix this insane glitch and this is a very very good app.

Perfect app now that FB messenger is a separate app from FB. Worth the upgrade to remove the ads. No issues so far 9/29/14

These apps usually are a huge fail. AT BEST, they usually are just mirrors and menu bar buttons for your Facebook’s mobile page. This one really is a standalone app. I don’t know if Facebook releases their API, or not (I think Google does not), but this is its own app, and it works great. I sincerely thought I would never see the day an app like this would come out in regards to the Facebook messenger service.

I really like it in that I don’t have to be on facebook to use it. When connected, it’s more user friendly and love the interface. Sadly, it doesn’t keep connected, surely they can integrate the authentication a little better, as I have constantly have to login, even after checking to stay logged in and save browser. This is the only app that does this. Also seems to constantly show “connecting to Facebook” even though its connected and I’m chatting. This would get a much better rating if the connection and authentication were a bit smoother and reliable. I am sure some of this is on the fb side, but it’s the only app I see this happen to. With facebook integration now in OSX, surely there is a better way to authenticate?