Facebook launches Android-only dialer app Hello

Washington: In a bid to put Facebook at the centre of all your communications, the company has launched an Android-onlydialer app called, Hello.

The app is available on Google Play store for free and replaces the native Android dialer with a significantly more Facebook-centric version, reported The Verge.

Hello seeks to modernize phone calls by allowing users to make free calls over Wi-Fi. The three key features offered by the app are: it uses Facebook to identify callers, even if their contact details are not saved on your smartphone; it makes it easy to block unwanted callers from ringing your phone and it has a robust search feature that allows you to find numbers of local businesses.

The app uses VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol, to make free calls over Wi-Fi. In case you miss a call, Hello will also allow you to respond using Messenger.

Andrea Vaccari, a product manager at the company, said that Facebook had no plans to make money from the app directly.