Thursday Facebook rolled out an update to its Messenger (iTunes link) app that allows users to make free voice calls to anyone, anywhere in the world for free.
This option has been available to Android users for a few weeks now so this is going to be a good cross-platform option that Facetime will likely never be able to match. I personally enjoy Facetime’s HD voice calls and if Facebook’s Messenger app can pull that off to any device anywhere in the world that has the potential to be a pretty big game changer.
Not surprisingly the update comes only weeks after screenshots of a cross-platform VOIP calling system that WhatsApp was apparently working on were leaked. It looks like Facebook is putting part of that $19 billion price tag to work quickly.
Adding this feature is likely to be the death of quite a few of the smaller VOIP apps such as Viber (iTunes) and WeChat (iTunes) who just have no way to compete with Facebook and now WhatsApps combined user base.
