Facebook Messenger is becoming s one-stop-shop for all communication services, ranging from SMS, voice/video/group calls, payment, transportation, apps, bots and a lots more.
After the company’s annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco earlier this month, the Menlo Park, Facebook has been quietly rolling out new features to its Messenger service, now you can make voice calls and send and receive SMS text messages — which typically go through your carrier’s cellular network.
“We’re currently testing these features on a small group of users but we haven’t fully launched it yet,” said David Marcus, the vice president of messaging products at Facebook.
Few days ago, Facebook updated its Facebook Messenger in Android Playstore although it’s still in beta version. As Apple doesn’t allow third-party developers to remove or modify Messages, except its instant-messaging app, formerly known as iMessage.
Calls, SMS, Messages, and more – all in one app
In the new version of Messenger, text messages now appear in purple bubbles with just the contact’s first name initial alongside Facebook messages and their blue color bubbles with the contact’s photo.
Before you can send text messages you will have to select Facebook Messenger as the default SMS app, which is now easy on Android. Just click ‘Change’ on the notification window and you’re good to go.
Another feature of the new version of Facebook Messenger is the possibility to make a call (but can’t receive a call) directly from the app.
Experience I had with the beta version of Facebook Messenger are not being able to send a text message to someone I have not communicated with. Also, you can’t be able to see the history of the voice calls placed over the cellular network (I used MTN), but just the Facebook calls.