Facebook Messenger To Launch For iPad Tuesday? How To Get It Before That On A Jailbroken iPad [Video]

By Kukil Bora | January 15 2013 2:29 AM

After Facebook sent invites for a Jan. 15 press conference last week asking the media to “come and see what we’re building,” reports surfaced online suggesting that the social media giant could announce the iPad version of its popular Messenger app during the event.

Sponsorship Link

TechCrunch reported, citing “one source” that the Facebook Messenger “app is ‘totally’ ready to launch Tuesday, and if the event is indeed a series of mobile product announcements, it could ‘totally’ fit in conceptually.”

However, folks at the Italian blog BiteYourApple have found out that the existing iPhone build of Facebook Messenger already has the interface and codes for the iPad version of the app embedded within it. If you have a jailbroken iPad, you can unlock the Facebook Messenger for your devices by following the steps explained below:

Photo: BiteYour Apple Facebook Messenger To Launch For iPad Tuesday? How To Get It Before That On A Jailbroken iPad

As noted by Redmond Pie, the iPad mode for the app fits to the larger screen natively, “as opposed to the 2X zoom setting that the tablet offers for conventional iPhone-only apps.”

Users, who are willing to try this tweak, should have iFile installed on their device as the process of enabling Facebook Messenger on the iPad includes modification of a few files. It allows the user to transfer and edit files on jailbroken devices, and also install .deb packages directly from it.

Here are the steps to follow:

- Download and install iFile.

- Install the iPhone version of Facebook Messenger on your iPad.

- Open iFile and tap Applications in the left-hand menu.

- Open the Messenger folder on your device and navigate to a sub-folder containing the info.plist file for the Messenger.app.

- Tap the info.plist file and find the UIDeviceFamily 1 string. (Refer the original source here for more information)

- Replace '1' (corresponding to the iPhone) with a '2' (the iPad version).

- Save the file.

- Re-spring and you’re done.

You can refer to the video guide below:

As iDownloadBlog pointed out, since this is a hack, not each and every feature of Facebook Messenger is likely to work. However, if reports about Facebook announcing the iPad version of the app Tuesday turn out to be true, features will very likely include emoticons, read receipts, location, group messaging, voice-recorded messaging, VoIP and Skype video calling.