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Introducing Hello
- 650REDHAIR 11y agoI think this is the part where I delete Facebook. A step too far.
- simplestyle 11y agoHow so?
- pluma 11y agoHave you previously paid any attention to the permissions the Facebook app asks for at all? I wanted to install Facebook on my Android device so I could share stuff on Facebook via the native "share" intent. Seeing the permission list made me reconsider.
- 650REDHAIR 11y agoWhen they broke messenger off into a different app I uninstalled. Right now I only use the mobile browser version and really only to upload photos of my daughter for my family to see. I'm starting to use it less and less though because the browser version is terrible.
- bentcorner 11y agoIf you're on Android, try using Tinfoil. It's the same browser version (so it may still be terrible for you), but interacting with it is a little easier than just opening Chrome/FF and going to fb.com.
- 650REDHAIR 11y agoWhen they broke messenger off into a different app I uninstalled. Right now I only use the mobile browser version and really only to upload photos of my daughter for my family to see. I'm starting to use it less and less though because the browser version is terrible.
- ori_b 11y agoNobody is forcing this on anyone. If you find it useful, install it. If you don't, then don't.
- maxk42 11y agoBut if I don't install it then the people I call still get my information without my knowledge, don't they?
- Tyr42 11y agoNo more information than was already public on facebook, according to your privacy settings, as far as I can see.
- gk1 11y agoOnly if you're connected with them on Facebook. (As I understand it.)
- tdkl 11y agoThey can easily upload their contact lists with your number included when finding friends. So yeah, our numbers are already on FB thanks to our friends.
- ori_b 11y agoThereis no new information being made public. Anything that can be seen through this can be seen through a a web browser already.
- patrickaljord 11y agoRead the article, this is a separate app. No need to uninstall the Facebook app. Or does this new app makes you so angry that you feel like deleting an other app from them?
- Dirlewanger 11y agoThis is a relatively marginal step in terms of their mining more user data. How is this one so much more egregious than anything else they do?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dmitrygr 11y agoNice design. Questionable audience. Whom is this for? Most people who are hardcore facebook users do not use phone calls at all as far as I've seen.
- vmarsy 11y agoFor Android only, a modern Caller ID system from Facebook. Hello will show you info about who’s calling you, even if you don’t have that number saved in your phone. You will only see info that people have already shared with you on Facebook. It also lets you look at businesses/restaurants information quickly from the dialer app
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jonstokes 11y agoOh yeah, that's what I really want: for FB to know everything about who I call and who calls me! </sarcasm>
- pluma 11y agoGot Facebook on your phone? They already do.
- dawson 11y agoNo, they don't. EDIT: I was wrong, this is one of the permissions they require on Android, however, not on iOS as Apple doesn't make it available to third-party developers.
- untog 11y agoOn Android their app asks for "read call log" permissions. Luckily, I am running on root and can disable that access, but it's certainly possible.
- MichaelGG 11y agoAlmost all Android apps can do this in realtime, because to get the IMEI/device ID (a questionable thing in itself), Google decided you should also be required to have permissions to see who is calling/called. It's a major privacy violation, with Google directly encouraging it for no good reason. (Getting device ID should be a very rare, high-security permission; instead each app should get a unique app+deviceID. And seeing who is calling is likewise a rare thing that should be highly suspect. Or Google could add controls or do on-demand like MS and Apple do...)
- _lce0 11y ago..plus knowing which apps are you running. I can't think of a valid reason why an app should require such permissions besides information gathering.. there are API for making you app talk, or discover other apps
- hywel 11y agoThis is a really interesting and logical move for FB, to integrate as a tangential add-on with something transactional like phone calls, (instead of just being a destination website / app).
- pluma 11y agoEspecially now that WhatsApp (recently acquired by Facebook) tries to hijack voice calling already. Even if you press the phone number in the WhatsApp contact details. This was a major annoyance for me because I was used to abusing WhatsApp as my address book and the voice call quality with WhatsApp is often atrocious (plus it uses up my phone's very limited data plan).
- taneem 11y agoI think the biggest challenge to this is Facebook itself (and other messaging/social apps). How many millennials make phone calls frequently to more than 5-10 close people any more? Everyone just uses messaging or social apps to stay in touch. I don't need this to give me social context to my wife or my parents etc. calling me. The value of this is really to people that are not that close, where Facebook can surface relevant data that I don't have at the top of my mind - but I rarely communicate with those people via phone calls any more.
- vmarsy 11y agoI would see the use for getting quickly restaurants/businesses hours, my solution right now is to query " <name of the business> hours" in google and hope that google provides the small information box with the hours. However this Hello is on Android, if I had an android phone I could just ask OK Google and expect the information to come even faster.
- micampe 11y agoIf you have iOS you can use Spotlight for that: search a business name and get the same place info you get in Maps, it’s pretty convenient (I think it’s new in iOS 8).
- wiremine 11y agoTwo thoughts: a. Regarding millennials: If they can younger users to use their dialer in 2015, they might stay with them for life. b. The average age for facebook is 40.5 [1]. I'm a Gen Xer myself, and I'm 50/50 with calls vs. messaging. I order pizza, call my mechanic, etc. all via the phone. [1] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/breakdown-facebook-users-age-63280.html http://smallbusiness.chron.com/breakdown-facebook-users-age-...
- dennisnedry 11y agoThose numbers are from 2 years ago. I'd like to know what they are as of March 2015.
- tegeek 11y agoHere in Sweden we use TrueCaller [1] which is almost the same as FB Hello. It is available for Android, iOS, and WP. And pretty much cover the entire world. It will be interesting to see how TrueCaller can compete with FB Hello. 1. http://www.truecaller.com/ http://www.truecaller.com/
- GVRV 11y agoPretty much everyone I know in India uses this too! It's one of the very essential apps here cause of call abuse. Will be very interesting to see how this plays out, indeed.
- hobarrera 11y agoI don't know where their data comes from, but after putting my number, all I get is the city it's in (which the area code makes obvious anyway).
- deepuj 11y agoWhen you install it, it takes data from your address book. That's how it gathers data.
- vitd 11y agoSounds horrible! I shouldn't have to give them my address book to find out if whomever is calling me is a spammer. I wonder what they're doing with the data? Also, phone numbers change hands. What happens when my friend John Doe changes his number and it goes to a spammer? Do I suddenly get marked somehow as being associated with spammers?
- o_____________o 11y agoAnd I wonder how vulnerable it is to consensus abuse like search engines are. If a few people name someone "Douchebag", what comes up on other phones?
- Ash-k 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Jemaclus 11y agoWhat I think is fascinating about this is how front-and-center the whole "block unwanted calls" feature is. They mention it several times on this one page, when they could mention a bunch of other features instead. It goes to show how concerned people are with potentially allowing frictionless contact from mere acquaintances.
- bentcorner 11y agoI have never needed to block a call, so I'm not the customer here. I'm curious what demographic uses call blocking so much that FB wants to advertise directly to them. Is it a problem that younger people face, or something that happens in other countries?
- MichaelGG 11y agoBuy an SSL certificate. Enjoy Comodo calling you 3 times a week, sometimes waking you up, to try to sell security. Even after telling them to stop. (Yeah, I should take it up with the FCC...) Even more fun: point out Comodo's lapses as a CA and say they're the last CA you'd ever deal with. Then the rep smoothly segues into pitching antivirus/"security" software.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoI get no spam from gandi. Also, Let's Encrypt is supposed to launch soon, which should be very interesting.
- Spearchucker 11y agoSurprised that you give them your real number. Any data I provide online is only ever enough for the specific service I want to function. The rest is invented. Fiction. Myth.
- MichaelGG 11y agoI'm pretty sure they just look at our website or other contact information. I'm not sure it's just the WHOIS info.
- shmerl 11y agoSounds too similar to Firefox Hello.
- gcp 11y agoI was hoping to see extended WebRTC support in Facebook :(
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- crousto 11y agoNo reaction yet from the _other_ Hello app? https://hellotext.com/ https://hellotext.com/
- doublec 11y agoOr Firefox Hello: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/ And Microsoft Hello: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/17/making-windows-10-more-personal-and-more-secure-with-windows-hello/ http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/17/making-w...
- nostrademons 11y agoOr hello.com, a Google spin-out from the guy who created Orkut: http://hello.com/ http://hello.com/
- whoisthemachine 11y agoGuess that's the downside of using a product name that isn't trademark-able...
- bandrami 11y agoNor the mother of all Hello apps: https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/ https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/ (As of version 2 it includes a mail reader...)
- turbostyler 11y agoI didn't switch to iPhone to have apps come out for Android first.
- MBCook 11y agoiOS doesn't allow you to do this kind of thing, only Apple has enough power to view incoming call data.
- turbostyler 11y agoJesus Christ you neckbeards can't take a joke.
- devmach 11y agoOne thing is not clear: What happens if I want some people (friends of friends etc) find me on facebook but they or others don't see my information on their hello app when I called / miscalled them? Would there be an opt-out?
- nabaraz 11y agoSo far we have: - Facebook (networking) - Messenger (messaging) - Hello (calls and callerID) Facebook should just fork Android, integrate all of these and release their own build.
- czardoz 11y agoSo does it make sense to assume that this is where the WhatsApp phone book data comes into play?
- jms703 11y agoFirefox Hello Facebook Hello What's next?
- mijustin 11y agoWow. This UI really looks like Google's UI for Local Businesses.
- sparaker 11y agoI think they just matched it with the messenger color and it somewhat became a very close match to the Local Businesses UI.
- grimmdude 11y agoSeems like this should be something that's already build into the phone.
- paul_milovanov 11y agoThey lost me at Hello.
- paul_milovanov 11y agoI have 57 points left and I'm determined to spend them.
- smackfu 11y agoIn my circle, using Facebook to connect through anything other than Facebook itself seems futile. No one has emails or phone numbers posted, even for friends. So this app seems like it would basically do nothing.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago>> "So this app seems like it would basically do nothing." For you. Today I had to email someone. I looked through my address book and because I'd previously add their name/number Facebook had retrieved their email (which I didn't yet have) through their profile and put it right in my address book. This happens quite often for me.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- davidw 11y agoIs "La Ciccia" good? Looks like one of the owners is actually Italian. Nice little promotion for them. Facebook? Only use the mobile web site on my phone, thank you!
- shogun21 11y agoMy native phone app for Android already does these things. Block unwanted numbers, gives me the business name if it knows, search for numbers. I don't know why I would have a need to replace it.
- akimc 11y agois it me or the design looks a bit like skype ? On another note they know the phone number of my friends because of 2FA that most people enabled I guess ? Because most people didn't shared this info. on their profile in my friend circle.
- yellowapple 11y agoSo they've reinvented Caller ID. How swell.
- vishaldpatel 11y agoFrom all the blocking, maybe it should be called "no thanks"? :-/
- gopher2 11y agoAre they going to try and own the word "Hello" or can I launch an app called Hello too? Seems like an extremely generic name.
- ronald_dregan 11y agoyet another product from an awful company to stay far, far away from if you value privacy in any way shape or form. fuck facebook, i cant wait until it dies.
- lern_too_spel 11y agoStrange that this is coming to Android first, given that most Android devices have this feature built in, making this app nearly useless. http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/04/google-does-caller-id-kitkat-4-4-matches-numbers-against-google-places-and-apps-for-business-and-starting-in-2014-google-personal-accounts/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/04/google-does-caller-i...
- sososoko 11y agoI dont have that feature on my device, or rather i cant see it. I think FB is better placed to do this, given that they have the Phone books of everyone who has the Facebook app and Whatsapp.
- profmonocle 11y agoThe feature to auto-block "commonly blocked numbers" is something most Android phones don't have built in. It's basically a spam filter for phone calls. (Although there are other apps that do this.) I had to change my phone number a couple years back because I was getting several robocalls per day from credit card scammers, and a normal blacklist was useless because they changed their numbers so often.
- yueq 11y agoYet another app named Hello
- suvelx 11y agoAdd a feature to distinguish what type of people my incoming calls are (humans, salesmen, or sub-human recruiters) and I'll think about it.
- Spoom 11y agoRemember when LinkedIn wanted to intercept your email (and also add "helpful stuff" to it)? It's that, but Facebook and for phone calls.
- jgautsch 11y agoI think this is really smart. I've always thought it strange that we still trade 10 digit IDs, and then write them to our own personal database. Someone else posed the question, but it's worth repeating- who else could pull this off? Will future generations still ask "what's your number?"
- itsmillertime4u 11y agoWow...this looks like everything Google Voice does only with a prettier interface. I sure wish Google would put more resources towards Voice rather then trying to merge/replace it with Hangouts.
- itsmillertime4u 11y agoWow...this looks like everything Google Voice does only with a prettier interface. I sure wish Google would put more resources towards Voice rather then trying to merge/replace it with Hangouts.
- fiatjaf 11y agoThis is the most useful thing Facebook has ever done. It will change the way we do phone calls, and it will be for better.
- jgalt212 11y ago> Billions of calls are made everyday on mobile phones and people often have very little information about who’s calling them. I don't find this to be the case. Caller ID tells me what I need to know the lion's share of the time.
- srirambhargav 11y agoAnyone using Google's Android L powered phone can search for local businesses from the dialer. http://www.phonearena.com/image.php?m=Articles.Images&f=name&id=167775 http://www.phonearena.com/image.php?m=Articles.Images&f=name... Android L can also display the name of person/business(even if it's not in your contacts) and whether the number is toll-free etc.,