Facebook wants to make your phone's calling feature a little smarter.
The social network on Wednesday launched a new app, dubbed Hello, which connects with Facebook to tell you who's calling—even if you don't have their number saved in your phone. When someone calls your phone, the app will show you their name and photo along with other useful information—like their work title, birthday, and whether you have any mutual friends—to help you decide whether to pick up or press ignore.
For privacy reasons, you'll only see information that people have already shared with you on Facebook.
Besides telling you who's calling, the app lets you search for people and businesses, then dial them up for free with a single tap.
"So if a friend tells you about a new restaurant in your neighborhood, you can use Hello to find their hours, make a reservation, and get directions, all without leaving the app," Facebook said.
And if one of your enemies rings you up, you can easily block them, and the call will go straight to voicemail. Another cool feature — you can opt to automatically block calls from numbers that have been blocked by a lot of other people (i.e. telemarketers). Blocked calls can be reviewed in your recent calls.
Built by Facebook's Messenger team, the app is only available on Android at this point. Facebook did not say if it plans to bring it to other platforms in the future.
Head over to the Google Play store to download Hello for your Android phone. For more on the new app, check out the video below.
In 2013, Facebook tried a phone home-screen takeover with Facebook Home. It basically put Facebook content on your home screen, but never really took off. Since then, Facebook has been focusing on in-app experiences, from the big rollout of Facebook Messenger to smaller endeavors like Facebook Rooms, Groups, and Facebook Riff.