Facebook Testing Dialer, Call-Blocking App For Android

According to some leaked screenshots, it appears that Facebook is preparing another app to dominate your smartphone home screen, for Android at least. In what could be a spiritual successor to Facebook Home, a now-abandoned Android skin that placed the social network's key messaging and photo features on the home screen, this new app appears to be not only a dialer, but a caller ID and blocker as well. As of now, the app is creatively called Phone.

The description of the app seen in the screenshots features a "FB-only" tag, which seems to point to the feature accidentally making its way out of internal testing. Android Police received the information from a tipster, who added that choosing to install prompted an error message.

Aside from being a basic dialer replacement, which, coming from Facebook, will probably feature quick calling access to friends and contacts on the social network, the description of Phone says it will show information about who is calling and block calls from numbers that are frequently blocked. This information that is displayed about incoming calls will surely be profile data from Facebook users' accounts, but it's anyone's guess how the app determines which numbers are blocked.

Facebook has confirmed that the Phone app exists, but offered no other information beyond that it was in testing. It's not clear how soon this app may see release, but it is an interesting look at what the company is planning for our home screens.

SOURCE Android Police