Facebook Hello: Three Features That Makes It Worth a Try

By Kamal Nayan - 23 Apr '15 02:16AM

Facebook recently unveiled a new app - Hello, an Android-only dialer app that seeks to modernize phone calls while also working to put Facebook at the center of all your communications.

Among many other features, the app lets you more easily make free calls over Wi-Fi.

The three key features that the company is touting:

It uses Facebook to identify callers so you know who's calling, even if you haven't stored their contact information.
It makes it easy to prevent unwanted callers from calling you.
It equips a powerful search feature that's particularly helpful for finding the numbers of local businesses.

Another intuitive feature of the app is that if you miss a call, it will offer you the option of responding using Messenger.

Facebook is not the first company to build a dialer app. Google's Hangouts dialer app has fewer than 5 million downloads.

Facebook has no plans to make money from the app directly. "Facebook is about making the world more open and connected," said Andrea Vaccari, a product manager at the company. "We think it's core to our mission."

The app is available in the Google Play Store as a free download.