Meta’s Messenger app has turn out to be an extremely in style option to make free voice and video calls. Now, a brand new design tweak will make the decision button (barely) simpler to search out. Meta is including a devoted tab for audio and video calls to the perform bar on the backside of the app. The new tab will seem alongside “Chats”, “Stories” and “People”, and speak in confidence to a listing of the person’s contacts, together with separate buttons for voice and video calls. It’s a refined change, however seemingly a transfer to make Messenger appear extra like a messaging and calling app within the model of Whatsapp. Prior to the change, customers needed to open up a separate chat thread with a pal as a way to name them. The new characteristic permits customers to dial associates straight,and may additionally function an introduction to these much less acquainted with Messenger’s calling options.
According to Meta, audio and video calling on Messenger has elevated by 40 p.c since early 2020. The firm expanded the options accessible to its encrypted messaging earlier this yr, including reactions, stickers, message-specific replies and forwarding. Meta’s plan is to finally make end-to-end encryption the default for Facebook and Instagram in 2023. It’s added quite a few AR results to its video calls, letting customers experiment with filters, masks and animations.
As far as free messaging apps go, Messenger has a protracted record of rivals, together with Google Voice, Viber, Signal and WhatsApp, which Meta purchased in 2014. While emphasizing the audio and video capabilities does not do a lot to make Messenger stand out from the pack, it stays one of many few main apps on this crowded discipline, apart from FaceTime, that does not require a telephone quantity to make use of.