As we mentioned last year, Facebook is shutting down access to their XMPP API on April 30th, 2015. This means that after this date, Flamingo users will no longer be able to log in to their Facebook accounts. This is beyond our control and was one of the reasons behind the decision to end support for Flamingo.
While Flamingo will continue to work for Google Hangouts (for the time being) and XMPP accounts, we have decided to discount the price down to $1.99 permanently for those who want to continue to use it as an XMPP client.
Flamingo 1.3 is now available on the Mac App Store. The new version includes UI updates and support for OS X Yosemite. Version 1.3 will be the last update to Flamingo. See our previous blog post for more details.
In 2012, we set out to build the best, most native instant messaging experience on the Mac. Flamingo was launched on the App Store in October 2013 after thousands of hours of design, development, and iteration. We believe that we succeeded in achieving our goals, but things will slowly be coming to a grinding halt with Facebook’s announcement that they will be discontinuing their XMPP service in the near future, and Google’s decision to move away from the XMPP standard for Hangouts.
Presented with this situation, we believe that the best course of action would be for Flamingo to find a new home. We no longer have the capacity to justify our time investment in this product and simultaneously satisfy the needs of our users.
To our existing users: We thank you wholeheartedly for your support over the last year. Situations like this are an unfortunate reality of indie development and also a consequence of relying on services that we do not fully control. That said, we are currently working on an update to bring the UI up to the standards of OS X Yosemite.
Facebook will end support for their XMPP service on April 30th, 2015, when they discontinue support for Facebook Platform 1.0. Facebook accounts in Flamingo will stop working at this point.
Google’s Hangouts product has moved away from using the XMPP standard. Google has not announced a date for when their current Google Talk XMPP service will be discontinued, but we can only assume that it will happen in due time. Implementing support for Google Talk has been a constant source of frustration for us because Google does not maintain parity with the feature set of Hangouts in their XMPP service.
To prospective buyers: Flamingo would make for a great starting point for developing a native instant messaging solution on OS X. The codebase was designed from the beginning to support the easy addition of other messaging services. The app currently compiles on OS X 10.9 and 10.10 and runs on OS X 10.8-10.10.
If you are interested in the product and want to make an offer or request further information, email us at support@flamingo.im.