At an event in Facebook's new San Francisco headquarters, the company admitted that Messenger had gotten bloated over the years. "It's not as simple as the app was at the beginning," said Stan Chudnovsky, the head of product for Facebook Messenger. "We knew it needed to be simple again."

In an effort to do that, Facebook wanted to make Messenger friendlier with a refreshed design and a simplified experience. So for example, instead of having to tap several times to send a photo or start a video call, you can now swipe on your friend's name on the Chats tab to access those features right from the home screen. Or, if you prefer, you can access the camera and video features in the compose window directly. It also placed those icons towards the upper right of the Chats tab to declutter the experience.

What's more, each conversation now has little contextual icons that tell you whether there's a game or video call going on. Another example is Discover and Games, which used to be two separate tabs; now it's just one.