Facebook is testing a new 'Phone' app
Android Police was sent a screenshot of a banner in the Android Facebook app which appears to have accidentally been leaked.
Facebook currently has 11 different apps that can be used to access different parts of the site. Facebook Messenger lets people send messages, Facebook Groups lets people use Facebook groups in a dedicated app, and so on. Now, it looks like Facebook wants to add a dialer app to its collection.
Here's the screenshot that revealed the existence of the app:
Facebook is gradually building apps based around functionality that you'd usually find in phones. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are offer greater functionality than normal text messages, and now Facebook is replacing the dialer with a version of its own that uses its data to create a better experience. People are getting used to using Facebook as an extra layer on the phone.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has often spoke of a desire to create a phone which is deeply integrated with Facebook, and the company has worked to embed its products into phones (most notably the HTC First, which flopped around the world).
Here's what Zuckerberg said earlier this year about Facebook's failure to create its own phone:
It's something that certainly is a little bit stressful. Maybe we can help people out more, or deliver our services a little bit better if we had more partnerships with the operating systems we were using to build our stuff. But it's not something that I'm that stressed about at this point.