Facebook Messenger isn't just built for the group chat you keep with your friends. With support for video and voice calls, it's capable of replacing most of the messaging apps on your phone — so long as you keep an active Facebook profile, that is. With a new update, calls on Messenger is getting a bigger focus on rings, with a dedicated tab that feels straight out of Android's default dialer.
Facebook Messenger Update Makes Video and Chats Easy
The new Calls Tab is rolling out to Android users starting this week, making it easy to place calls and view your history in a single space. It's pretty reminiscent of what you'd see in apps like Google Duo or Android's default dialer. Your contacts — in this case, your Facebook friends — each show up as recent calls, complete with incoming or outgoing information, the type of call, and the date the conversation took place. You can quickly call anyone back by hitting the icon next to each name or placing a new call by tapping either of the buttons at the top of the screen.
Calls Tab in Messenger (Android)
Once it's rolled out to everyone, it should make placing an actual phone or video call to your friends much easier while also drawing more attention to voice chats. Placing calls to your friends in the current version of Messenger is easy — you just select the phone or video chat icons within a conversation thread — but a dedicated tab makes this action much faster.
Facebook says that audio and video calls have exploded in popularity on the platform, up 40% compared to early 2020. In total, 300 million calls — both audio-only and video — are placed on Messenger daily. With this new — and more evident — placement, expect that number to keep growing.
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