Introducing Hello | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Hello

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130 pointsjamesjyu96 comments

I think the biggest challenge to this is Facebook itself (and other messaging/social apps). How many millennials make phone calls frequently to more than 5-10 close people any more? Everyone just uses messaging or social apps to stay in touch.

I don't need this to give me social context to my wife or my parents etc. calling me. The value of this is really to people that are not that close, where Facebook can surface relevant data that I don't have at the top of my mind - but I rarely communicate with those people via phone calls any more.

I would see the use for getting quickly restaurants/businesses hours, my solution right now is to query " <name of the business> hours" in google and hope that google provides the small information box with the hours. However this Hello is on Android, if I had an android phone I could just ask OK Google and expect the information to come even faster.

If you have iOS you can use Spotlight for that: search a business name and get the same place info you get in Maps, it’s pretty convenient (I think it’s new in iOS 8).

Two thoughts:

a. Regarding millennials: If they can younger users to use their dialer in 2015, they might stay with them for life.

b. The average age for facebook is 40.5 [1]. I'm a Gen Xer myself, and I'm 50/50 with calls vs. messaging. I order pizza, call my mechanic, etc. all via the phone.

[1] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/breakdown-facebook-users-age-...

Those numbers are from 2 years ago. I'd like to know what they are as of March 2015.

Maybe even more skewed towards older folks as younger ones spend more time on Snapchat et al.

>I order pizza, call my mechanic, etc. all via the phone

By choice, or by necessity?

For me, it's both. I don't trust J. Random Food Service handling payments (and adding fees) for local restaurants when ordering via the web. (Most are too small to set up their own service, so they use crap like "GrubHub" or whatever.) I can just call them and pay them directly - costs less they get more. Also, now those payment companies can't track me since I'm not using them. I do use one or two large chains' phone apps because they seem trust-worthy enough and appear to be handling the payments themselves.

My mechanics (well, mine and my wife's) have web pages, but when you set up one appointment on them, they auto-add routine maintenance for you. While that could be convenient, neither of us drives like a normal person (I did ~4,000 miles per year the last 4 years, my wife even less), so it's really just a pain to have to cancel an appointment every time I make one. It's also scummy of them to set one up for me without even asking if it's what I want. It's a dark pattern of adding things to your basket without asking you, essentially.

I often use Just Eat to decide my menu and then call, because it is much faster than filling out the form. Even if I am logged in already.

b. Anecdotes are not data. I'm a Gen Xer as well, and avoid both voice and SMS as much as possible - I communicate via IM and email, and use the web for things like "ordering pizza".

If the phone rings with the sound I've chosen for my mother and my SOs, it gets picked up. Otherwise it goes to voicemail. I skim Google's transcription of it and consider calling back.

Here in Sweden we use TrueCaller [1] which is almost the same as FB Hello. It is available for Android, iOS, and WP. And pretty much cover the entire world. It will be interesting to see how TrueCaller can compete with FB Hello.

1. http://www.truecaller.com/

Pretty much everyone I know in India uses this too! It's one of the very essential apps here cause of call abuse. Will be very interesting to see how this plays out, indeed.

I don't know where their data comes from, but after putting my number, all I get is the city it's in (which the area code makes obvious anyway).

When you install it, it takes data from your address book. That's how it gathers data.

Sounds horrible! I shouldn't have to give them my address book to find out if whomever is calling me is a spammer. I wonder what they're doing with the data? Also, phone numbers change hands. What happens when my friend John Doe changes his number and it goes to a spammer? Do I suddenly get marked somehow as being associated with spammers?

And I wonder how vulnerable it is to consensus abuse like search engines are. If a few people name someone "Douchebag", what comes up on other phones?

I think it does not come from your address book. Rather, it builds the database from each one of us who register with truecaller with thier numbers. So for example: I register with my phone number 123456789, and you register with your phone number 987654321. Both these numbers would be stored on Truecaller's servers and when you get a call from my number 123456789, and even if you don't have my phone number in your phonebook, you still get to see that I am calling you with my name (the details come from the server). You need Wifi/data connection to get truecaller working. That's my understanding , unless I am utterly wrong.

You are utterly wrong. Truecaller does take its data from the contact book. It's very easy to test as well. If you happen to know someone's number is not on truecaller, do this - add his number in your contact book with some fake name and install true caller after that. When he calls you, you'll see the fake name.

Hmm.. I am not sure you are right.

http://www.truecaller.com/support#/General/a3

http://www.truecaller.com/support#/Android/a24

It says: When you download Truecaller from Google Play, it NEVER uploads your phonebook to make it searchable or public. Truecaller needs access to certain capabilities to provide you with a richer experience.

Thanks for pointing this out! My volume of spam robocalls and SMS has gone through the roof this year, and I knew there had to be some app that did like a collaborative blacklist for these numbers. This TrueCaller appears to do the trick.

Play store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller

Oh yeah, that's what I really want: for FB to know everything about who I call and who calls me! </sarcasm>

Got Facebook on your phone? They already do.

No, they don't.

EDIT: I was wrong, this is one of the permissions they require on Android, however, not on iOS as Apple doesn't make it available to third-party developers.

On Android their app asks for "read call log" permissions.

Luckily, I am running on root and can disable that access, but it's certainly possible.

Almost all Android apps can do this in realtime, because to get the IMEI/device ID (a questionable thing in itself), Google decided you should also be required to have permissions to see who is calling/called.

It's a major privacy violation, with Google directly encouraging it for no good reason.

(Getting device ID should be a very rare, high-security permission; instead each app should get a unique app+deviceID. And seeing who is calling is likewise a rare thing that should be highly suspect. Or Google could add controls or do on-demand like MS and Apple do...)

..plus knowing which apps are you running.

I can't think of a valid reason why an app should require such permissions besides information gathering.. there are API for making you app talk, or discover other apps

Are the permissions different on iOS? Because I'm pretty sure they ask to see your call status and caller information on Android.

Yup I was wrong, different on iOS.

Mass market users don't seem to prioritize these kind of values when making software decisions.

that's a problem. Especially because they claim to care passionately about it.

I think more realistically computers are Still mysterious magic boxes to them to some extent

Exactly my thoughts... except this app is exactly in Facebook's wheelhouse. Who else could do this?

When Facebook introduced their phone (well, just their android launcher) a couple of years ago, I thought this kind of feature would be a major selling point.

While I would never use it, I know many many people who would be thrilled for something like this.

I wonder if the WhatsApp acquisition price just got validated.

No reaction yet from the _other_ Hello app?

https://hellotext.com/

Or Firefox Hello: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/

And Microsoft Hello: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/17/making-w...

Or hello.com, a Google spin-out from the guy who created Orkut:

http://hello.com/

Guess that's the downside of using a product name that isn't trademark-able...

Nor the mother of all Hello apps:

https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/

(As of version 2 it includes a mail reader...)

What I think is fascinating about this is how front-and-center the whole "block unwanted calls" feature is. They mention it several times on this one page, when they could mention a bunch of other features instead. It goes to show how concerned people are with potentially allowing frictionless contact from mere acquaintances.

I have never needed to block a call, so I'm not the customer here. I'm curious what demographic uses call blocking so much that FB wants to advertise directly to them. Is it a problem that younger people face, or something that happens in other countries?

Buy an SSL certificate. Enjoy Comodo calling you 3 times a week, sometimes waking you up, to try to sell security. Even after telling them to stop. (Yeah, I should take it up with the FCC...)

Even more fun: point out Comodo's lapses as a CA and say they're the last CA you'd ever deal with. Then the rep smoothly segues into pitching antivirus/"security" software.

I get no spam from gandi.

Also, Let's Encrypt is supposed to launch soon, which should be very interesting.

Surprised that you give them your real number. Any data I provide online is only ever enough for the specific service I want to function. The rest is invented. Fiction. Myth.

I'm pretty sure they just look at our website or other contact information. I'm not sure it's just the WHOIS info.

iOS already has the block caller feature. Confused why Facebook is making such a big deal about it.

I think being able to see how many others have blocked the number would help to weed out telemarketing calls, saving me the 3 seconds it takes to answer, hear the pre-recorded message and hang up.

Nice design.

Questionable audience. Whom is this for?

Most people who are hardcore facebook users do not use phone calls at all as far as I've seen.

Strange that this is coming to Android first, given that most Android devices have this feature built in, making this app nearly useless. http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/04/google-does-caller-i...

I dont have that feature on my device, or rather i cant see it.

I think FB is better placed to do this, given that they have the Phone books of everyone who has the Facebook app and Whatsapp.

The feature to auto-block "commonly blocked numbers" is something most Android phones don't have built in. It's basically a spam filter for phone calls. (Although there are other apps that do this.)

I had to change my phone number a couple years back because I was getting several robocalls per day from credit card scammers, and a normal blacklist was useless because they changed their numbers so often.

For Android only, a modern Caller ID system from Facebook.

Hello will show you info about who’s calling you, even if you don’t have that number saved in your phone. You will only see info that people have already shared with you on Facebook.

It also lets you look at businesses/restaurants information quickly from the dialer app

In my circle, using Facebook to connect through anything other than Facebook itself seems futile. No one has emails or phone numbers posted, even for friends.

So this app seems like it would basically do nothing.

>> "So this app seems like it would basically do nothing."

For you. Today I had to email someone. I looked through my address book and because I'd previously add their name/number Facebook had retrieved their email (which I didn't yet have) through their profile and put it right in my address book. This happens quite often for me.

This is a really interesting and logical move for FB, to integrate as a tangential add-on with something transactional like phone calls, (instead of just being a destination website / app).

Especially now that WhatsApp (recently acquired by Facebook) tries to hijack voice calling already. Even if you press the phone number in the WhatsApp contact details.

This was a major annoyance for me because I was used to abusing WhatsApp as my address book and the voice call quality with WhatsApp is often atrocious (plus it uses up my phone's very limited data plan).

Seems like this should be something that's already build into the phone.

I think this is the part where I delete Facebook.

A step too far.

How so?

Have you previously paid any attention to the permissions the Facebook app asks for at all?

I wanted to install Facebook on my Android device so I could share stuff on Facebook via the native "share" intent. Seeing the permission list made me reconsider.

When they broke messenger off into a different app I uninstalled. Right now I only use the mobile browser version and really only to upload photos of my daughter for my family to see. I'm starting to use it less and less though because the browser version is terrible.

If you're on Android, try using Tinfoil. It's the same browser version (so it may still be terrible for you), but interacting with it is a little easier than just opening Chrome/FF and going to fb.com.

Nobody is forcing this on anyone. If you find it useful, install it. If you don't, then don't.

But if I don't install it then the people I call still get my information without my knowledge, don't they?

No more information than was already public on facebook, according to your privacy settings, as far as I can see.

Only if you're connected with them on Facebook. (As I understand it.)

They can easily upload their contact lists with your number included when finding friends. So yeah, our numbers are already on FB thanks to our friends.

Thereis no new information being made public. Anything that can be seen through this can be seen through a a web browser already.

Read the article, this is a separate app. No need to uninstall the Facebook app. Or does this new app makes you so angry that you feel like deleting an other app from them?

This is a relatively marginal step in terms of their mining more user data. How is this one so much more egregious than anything else they do?

Wow. This UI really looks like Google's UI for Local Businesses.

I think they just matched it with the messenger color and it somewhat became a very close match to the Local Businesses UI.

Anyone using Google's Android L powered phone can search for local businesses from the dialer. http://www.phonearena.com/image.php?m=Articles.Images&f=name...

Android L can also display the name of person/business(even if it's not in your contacts) and whether the number is toll-free etc.,

So far we have:

- Facebook (networking)

- Messenger (messaging)

- Hello (calls and callerID)

Facebook should just fork Android, integrate all of these and release their own build.

They pretty much tried that, and it failed miserably.

I thought they only created an app(launcher) called 'Facebook Home'. Did they ever fork android like Fire OS and Firefox OS?

One thing is not clear: What happens if I want some people (friends of friends etc) find me on facebook but they or others don't see my information on their hello app when I called / miscalled them? Would there be an opt-out?

> Billions of calls are made everyday on mobile phones and people often have very little information about who’s calling them.

I don't find this to be the case. Caller ID tells me what I need to know the lion's share of the time.

Wow...this looks like everything Google Voice does only with a prettier interface. I sure wish Google would put more resources towards Voice rather then trying to merge/replace it with Hangouts.

My native phone app for Android already does these things. Block unwanted numbers, gives me the business name if it knows, search for numbers.

I don't know why I would have a need to replace it.

Are they going to try and own the word "Hello" or can I launch an app called Hello too? Seems like an extremely generic name.

This is the most useful thing Facebook has ever done. It will change the way we do phone calls, and it will be for better.

So does it make sense to assume that this is where the WhatsApp phone book data comes into play?

is it me or the design looks a bit like skype ?

On another note they know the phone number of my friends because of 2FA that most people enabled I guess ? Because most people didn't shared this info. on their profile in my friend circle.

I think this is really smart. I've always thought it strange that we still trade 10 digit IDs, and then write them to our own personal database.

Someone else posed the question, but it's worth repeating- who else could pull this off?

Will future generations still ask "what's your number?"

Firefox Hello Facebook Hello What's next?

Remember when LinkedIn wanted to intercept your email (and also add "helpful stuff" to it)? It's that, but Facebook and for phone calls.

Add a feature to distinguish what type of people my incoming calls are (humans, salesmen, or sub-human recruiters) and I'll think about it.

Sounds too similar to Firefox Hello.

I was hoping to see extended WebRTC support in Facebook :(

So they've reinvented Caller ID. How swell.

Yet another app named Hello

They lost me at Hello.

I have 57 points left and I'm determined to spend them.

From all the blocking, maybe it should be called "no thanks"? :-/

Is "La Ciccia" good? Looks like one of the owners is actually Italian. Nice little promotion for them.

Facebook? Only use the mobile web site on my phone, thank you!

I didn't switch to iPhone to have apps come out for Android first.

iOS doesn't allow you to do this kind of thing, only Apple has enough power to view incoming call data.

Jesus Christ you neckbeards can't take a joke.

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