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Best Phone Calling App?
- Thread starter SSHGuru
- Start date
Simply Applied
Member
Sorry, I misunderstood your first post. I thought you were indicating that Sign worked best with 5-10 apps, not that direct dials work better when there is a limited number of contacts.
And yes, although I'm biased, I agree that it is more effective with more apps. However, because it eliminates the accidental/unintended calls that happen with direct dials, I think its better for any amount of contacts.
Thanks for the feedback.
Simply Applied
Member
Sign does texting too if you don't make a lot of calls. After this upcoming update, you'll be able to set the default action to Text instead of Call.
And we're considering adding email, GTalk, etc. in the future...although I'm not making any promises because we want to keep Sign small and responsive, so we have to weigh any additional features against how it impacts performance.
I'm sorry, but let me understand....and you understand (you asked for feedback). I'm driving down the road with my bluetooth in my ear and decide to call my wife. I pick up my Incredible and click on the on button on the upper left edge and then without looking flip my thumb to the right with brings up the left screen and I push my finger half way down and I am dialing.....having never taken my eyes from the road! That's why I use the shortcut. I don't have to activate a calling system and I don't have to confirm whom I am calling, both or which my eyes off the road. Sorry.
Simply Applied
Member
Thanks for the feedback, we want everyone's input, both good and bad because we won't know what to improve if people don't let us know.
Here's how that situation would work with Sign. Let's assume your contact Sign for your wife is the number 1, or essentially a line straight down. You have the Sign widget on the bottom right of your primary home screen, i.e., the screen your phone goes to when you hit the home button as the default. Without looking, you hit the Sign widget so it prevents you from accidentally launching any other apps or direct dial icons. You swipe down with your thumb since you are holding it in one hand. The call initiates without you looking at the screen.
Yes, there is an adjustable call confirm that lasts from 1 to 4 seconds, but it does not prevent the call from occurring unless you hit the "cancel" button. As an additional safeguard to prevent calling the wrong person, there is a feature which will prevent the call from going through if more than one sign is recognized - this happens less than 5% of the time according to our beta testing and personal experience. Neither of these options will require you to look at the screen because if the call does not initiate, you will know that it is requesting clarification, at which point you can just hit your back button to go back to the entry screen to try again.
Also, I can call any one of my speed dial contacts assuming I am able to recreate the gesture with my thumb, which actually isn't too difficult because the recognition is pretty good, even if my Sign isn't exactly right or not real smooth. However, your mileage may vary because everyone "Signs" a little differently.
So back to the example above - This is one more step than your current dialer, however, it ensures that you won't accidentally dial the wrong person or accidentally launch another app or direct dial icon. In your situation above, what if you are more than one screen over (depending on your phone and the number of screens you have), you may have to swipe several times to get to your dialer screen.
However, for the sake of discussion, let's assume that you are able to launch a call to your wife with one swipe and one button push. I actually duplicate that functionality the way I have my phone set up. I keep a Sign widget at the bottom right hand of each of my screens so I can dial no matter what screen I am on - I have 5 or 7 screens depending on my current configuration. Therefore, my steps for calling my wife with that setup would be click the button without taking my eyes off the road, swipe down with my thumb. The call launches without me ever taking my eyes off the road AND I don't have to worry about calling the wrong person or inadvertently hitting an icon. Also, I don't have to make additional swipes to ensure I'm all the way over to the last screen because I never leave the screen I'm on.
You are certainly happy with your speed dialer, and there are a lot of good speed dialers in the market. Ours is just a different variation on how it can be implemented. I certainly think our approach is unique because it utilizes gestures, it looks pretty cool to be able to draw on your home screen, its an effective way to avoid inadvertently hitting an app or direct dial icon, it includes customizable safeguards, and with the full version, you could conceivably call every single person in your contact list without ever looking at the phone assuming you have Signs for all of those people.
And if you aren't driving your car, you can use it to send a text as well.
Sign Lite is free in the market for those who want to give it a try to see if they like it. So far the feedback has been pretty good other than an issue with it not recognizing EAS/3rd party contact lists - which we are currently working on a fix. It certainly isn't going to be for everyone, though.
I do appreciate your feedback. These types of discussions really make me think about how our app is designed and whether or not there are areas which can be improved. Just this post has me thinking about a couple of additional options that may improve the ease of use. We'll have to evaluate those to see if we feel like they should be implemented.
Thanks!
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Simply Applied
Member
This is the entire reason I designed Sign using activation and gestures. It was designed to specifically avoid misdials from direct dial icons. I hate misdials. My pregnant wife hate's misdials when I'm the one misdialing her at 2 in the morning because I hit direct dial icons on my home screen inadvertently. This is her after that happened for the 3rd or 4th time - :icon_evil:.
So misdials/inadvertent dials of direct dial icons is exactly what led to Sign. Now this is my wife - :icon_ banana:
.carbonnoid
Member
sign. gesture search on the homescreen i love it
Simply Applied
Member
Essentially. However, the programmer would be upset if I didn't mention that we ( and mostly "he") spent a lot of time developing and programming a custom recognition engine. It does partially use the gesture API which is used in gesture search, but it was too unreliable as a dialer so we created our own recognition system to make it work more consistently and accurately.
One issue that is tough when dealing with Gestures is that everyone does them a little differently, so what works perfect for one person may not work very well for another. We feel like we've found a sweet spot that works well for most people. We are looking at ways to improve that; however, so if people want to provide feedback about how well the recognition is, we welcome that input.
Thanks and happy to hear you like the concept!
I use this also.....i have assigned one screen for all my direct/quick dials...works perfect...showed this to a co-workers and they are all jealous...:icon_ peace:
Long press>>shortcuts>>direct dial
Thanks for the reply. Now, what do I long press on? I've tried it on the contact, the phone icon, the number, etc. I'm new to the Droid and smartphones in general.
Simply Applied
Member
Longpress on the homescreen, like you would to add a widget. Then select shortcut/direct dial
Thanks!! I had tried this, but for some reason it doesn't work on the homescreen. I tried it on the left homescreen and it worked! I appreciate your help.