Friday, February 22, 2013

Add More Features to Your Phone Dialer [Android]

Add More Features to Your Phone Dialer [Android]

android-dialer-introThe part of an Android phone not many people think about is the dialer. This is the app on your phone where you dial out to make a call. At first glance there doesn’t really seem like a lot could be done to the dialer to make it do something different. In reality, some apps are available to add features to the Android phone dialer.

1. Call Notes

Call Notes is similar to another application previously covered here called Call Reminder Notes. Call Notes is a bi t different because of the information displayed. In Gmail or on your Android device, you have the option to add notes to a contact in your address book. These are the notes to be displayed. A great time to have the notes displayed is when you are making business calls. You can keep notes of your previous meetings or other info you may want to talk about and have it displayed when you make or take the call.

android-dialer-call-notes

The Pro version of Call Notes lets you edit the the notes for a contact right from the app opposed yo having to go to Gmail on the web or your Android contact list. You can also have the notes displayed for the whole call or a set amount of time.

Ca ll Notes

2. Google Voice

While Google Voice is not anything new, there is a little shortcut not many people use. What the shortcut does is change the default app to make outgoing calls. The shortcut will let you toggle through the choices of using Google Voice to make:

  • All Calls
  • No Calls
  • International calls only
  • Ask every time a call is made

android-dialer-google-voice-toggle

The toggle can be essential for anyone who uses their Google Voice number for work and their actual cell phone number for personal. Toggling to ”Ask every time a call is made” can be an easy way to know you are calling someone from the correct number. You can usually get the the shortcuts by long-pressing the screen and choosing Shortcuts. Look for “To ggle Google Voice”.

Google Voice

3. Missed Call Auto Reply

Some Android phones come with an option to send a text message to someone when you miss their call. Think about it, you are in a meeting or a movie and you get a call from someone. You can’t answer but you want them to know you got the call and were just in a spot where you couldn’t talk. If your phone doesn’t come with this feature, this is a useful app for you.

Missed Call Auto Reply asks you to create an event. You will pick a length of time and a message to send. When a call is silenced, the predetermined message will be sent. On some devices, the voic email will need to be shut off for this to work. I didn’t have this issue when I made a call to the phone and missed the call.

Missed Call Auto Reply 

4. T9 Dialer

One of the fastest ways to text a few years ago was by using T9. As it learned how you typed, it would auto complete the rest of the word for you. While some phones eliminated this feature for texting, some phones kept it for finding contacts quickly and the dialer app. If your phone is not one that has this feature, you might want to give EasyDialer T9 a try. When you open the app, you can start typing the person’s name or phone number and your list of contacts will be narrowed down to only those possibilities.

EasyDialer T9 would be a replacement app for your dialer meaning you could see your call log and dial normally from this app too. In addition to the basic phone tasks needed, you can also set a custom background image making it more personalized than the preinstalled dialer.

EasyDialer T9

5. Old School Dialer

Old School Dialer is just a fun app to turn the buttons of the dialer into a rotary phone dial. If you miss the 70?s and want to have a different look for your phone, this will do it. It’s fun to watch people use Old School Dialer when they want to make a call from your phone.

android-dialer-old-school-dialer

Old School Dialer

Final Words

While the Android phone dialer is not the most popular app to tweak, there are some apps out there to add some good functionality to it. Whether it’s by viewing notes, changing the look or adding an auto reply, they can help make things just a little easier.

Are there apps you use to extend the abilities of the Android phone dialer app?

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