contacts - 2/2 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

[Getting To Know Android 4.0, Part 6] The Phone App Gets Lots Of Love

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Getting To Know Android, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0

Last Updated: August 10th, 2012

Welcome to the sixth edition of GTKA4.0! If you are somehow just joining us, where have you been? You've only been missing the most comprehensive coverage of Ice Cream Sandwich on the internet. If you need to catch up, we already covered Gmail, Google Talk, YouTube, Calendar, and People (Contacts).

This article is for all the old school people out there that actually make phone calls with their smartphones. Today we're examining the Dialer.

For no reason other than tradition, here are some completely unenlightening about screens:

This time both versions are from emulators.

Nov

[Getting To Know Android 4.0, Part 5] Everything Changes In Contacts, Even The Name!

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Getting To Know Android, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0

Last Updated: August 10th, 2012

GTKA4.0 is back! (That's right. We're cool enough to abbreviate now.) Welcome to Part 5: Contacts. The Contacts app has seen the biggest change of any app from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich. Everything is different. It's not even called "Contacts" anymore, It prefers to be called the "People" app. We've got a lot to cover.

Unfortunately, unless you have a Nexus device (I don't), it's almost impossible to get a hold of a fully functional, stock Gingerbread contacts app. The closest I can get is a non-syncing emulator, which doesn't have enough options, and the Cyanogenmod 7 contacts, which has way too many options.

Oct

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 7] Contapps Contacts & Dialer Is An Undoubtedly Impressive, Beautiful Dialer Replacement

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

Continuing on the quest for the perfect dialer to replace Android's stock phone application, I've come across Contapps Contacts & Dialer, an app I had never heard of until I began scouring the market. For a free dialer app, it has a lot to offer, and I'm surprised that it isn't more popular.

At A Glance

Contapps is a dialer replacement that is simple, practical, and well-designed, with enough extra features to make it feel new. While it may have a couple of redundancies or inconsistencies, it's definitely a great dialer, and definitely has a shot at being my everyday dialer solution (at least until I get my hands on Ice Cream Sandwich).

Oct

Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Closer Look - The Dialer And People App: Yep, It's Still A Phone

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

While we use our devices for everything from watching movies to browsing the net and checking social networks, let's not overlook the fact that, at their core, they're still called smartphones. As such, the dialer and contact app -- now called People -- in Ice Cream Sandwich have both received a major overhaul.

The People is, of course, based on the current Contacts app, but it has been totally redesigned to be more intuitive, easier to use, and provide all the information about your contacts in one centralized location. The main screen offers the typical list of contacts, but instead of being tabbed like the current version, it's swipe-able (like most things in ICS).

Sep

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 3] Dialer One Packs Your Favorite Phone Features Into One Beautiful, Versatile Screen

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

Last Updated: September 23rd, 2011

Next in our series of dialer reviews is a very popular replacement dialer called simply Dialer One, developed by Yermek Zhumagulov and available from the Android Market for free. It has a slick design with multiple theming options, and combines just about all the features you need into one screen, which seriously cuts down on time spent navigating around to find what you want.

At A Glance

I have a habit of talking a lot about the design of an app, but in this case there isn't much to say. The design of Dialer One is great. It's simple, clean, and interchangeable, including a black, white, gray, and 'wallpaper' theme (which makes the interface transparent, showing your own wallpaper behind it).

Mar

[Hands-On] The GO Dev Team Does It Again - And This Time It's A Dialer/Contacts App

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

The GO Dev Team, the people who brought you the popular apps GO SMS, GO Weather, and GO Launcher, are at it again, bringing you a contacts manager and dialer that is, quite frankly, stunning, both in functionality and aesthetics. It dropped into the market not 12 hours ago and is already getting very popular as well as garnering great reviews. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

The first thing you'll notice upon installing it is that there are actually two parts to the application that will be called by your device separately: The dialer and the contacts manager.

Feb

Google Takes A Swing At Facebook: Removes Contact Syncing With Nexus S Update

Posted by Zak Stinson in Applications, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Nexus One (Passion), Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

Today, Google got the ball rolling on Gingerbread updates for the two official "Google phones", the Nexus One and Nexus S. While this is exciting, long awaited news for owners of the Nexus One, the Nexus S crowd may have some reason for disdain.

One of the things that got me really excited when I bought my first Android phone was the ability to import the numbers and email addresses of all my Facebook friends to my contact list automagically. No longer did I have to look it up on the Facebook webpage or, God forbid, call them and ask.

With the Gingerbread update for the Nexus S, Google has disabled this feature.

Sep

Amazing Ingenuity: TAT's "Horizon" Concept Blends 2D With 3D In Maps And Contacts [Must-See Videos]

Posted by T. Carter Ross in News, Videos

Even with Street View, it can be hard to orient yourself in a strange area with a smartphone-based map. The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), an absolutely genius group of UI designers, wants to jazz things up by letting users shift dynamically from a flat object, like a map or a list of contacts, to a 3D one, which can be overlaid with additional information.

Horizon 2D-3D Maps

By allowing the user to seamlessly transition from a two-dimensional display to a three-dimensional one and back, TAT aims to make it easier to comfortably maintain a sense of space and orientation. At the heart of it all lies TAT Cascades, a UI framework for the production of advanced user interfaces.

May

How To Add Hard (Wait) And Soft (2-3 Sec) Pauses To Your Android Contacts

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Tips & Tutorials

This article describes how to add hard and soft pauses to your contacts' phone numbers on your Android phone.

These tricks are quite useful, but it surprises me how relatively unpublished and unknown they are.

What's This All About?

I'm sure you can think of a situation where having some sort of a pause in a phone number could save quite a bit of time, as you could program the whole sequence once and never enter it manually again.

For example, I have a calling card which asks me a whole bunch of information, like the language I want the menu in, my account and pin, and the phone number I want to dial.