Direct Call

[naman919]

Hopefully you've all heard about the Galaxy S3 feature they touted at the live event that was named "Direct Call." What the feature does is when you receive a text or are in the process of a chat via text message you can hold the phone up to your ear and the phone will call that contact without further input on the user's part. Pretty cool and useful if you ask me. Especially while driving when i don't have time to type out a "i'm driving, call you back" text, even if it is a quick-reply preset message.

I'd like to see how the devs are able to port this feature and if it's a simple feature to create from scratch right now without even seeing the S3's software. Seems like it could be a relatively easy "trick" to implement, but then again i'm not a developer. All I can tell you is that the S3 seems to just use the proximity sensor and then read the contact information in the current thread. Anywho, what's everyone think?

note: I couldn't find a dedicated thread so i thought i would create one. :biggrin:

 

[naman919]

hmm...should this be in the ROM section? i'm shocked no one is talking about this feature. thoughts moderators?

 

[???]

I don't really call anyone that texts me. And hand cent has a call button right in the text screen. so yeah it might save one step, but its a pretty easy step haha.

I'd be worried that if I tilted the phone upright or covered the sensor it would call when I didn't want it too. And pretty much every stock text app Ives seen is ugly as hell. so if I got a sg3 I'd most likely run hand cent app anyways.

The changing mat I want thou. As well as the bigger screen and about 3 other things it does

 

[naman919]

no offense, but that was a terribly useless response. many people, myself included, are fans of the stock text app. Handcent looks like a childish version of iOS's messenger client, in my opinion. my point being, to each his/her own.

with that said, I feel the direct call feature still has value and provides a unique differentiating feature for the SIII. in regard to accidental activation of the feature, you may be right. but from what I can tell, the direct call feature is using the proximity sensor which is hard to accidentally cover without intent of a phone call.

long story short, I think an SIII dump was already acquired bc of the flipboard apk that was released. has anyone checked out how the SIII is implementing this feature? I'm still very intrigued by this tool.

 

[???]

and I think if you spend a few min with hand cent and most likely other text apps, you will find it is completely customizable and if you don't want it to look the way it does, change it.


if that's childish, cool... then I'm a child. i'm just disagreeing that putting the phone to your ear vs touching a button that's already on the screen isn't really a big selling point. don't take it as I don't like the phone, I haven't even seen one in person yet.

But whatever.

oh and I've triggered my sensor a few times on this nexus somehow while checking my voice mail mostly. I have to wait till the screen comes back on to finish my pass code. not that that will happen, just saying

 

[sbenson]

This will probably be a touch wiz only feature. I doubt devs will spend much time on this since the reward would be pretty minimal versus the amount of time they'd have to pour into modding something like this. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a cool feature, but I just don't see this happening.

On ICS it's one click away once you're in the messenger app. If you're in a thread, tap the phone icon at the top and it will automatically call the person you're texting. It's simple and doesn't fuss with the prox sensor which sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

 

[b-jammin21]

Haha I may be an idiot or it's just the fact that I never notice things, but I didn't even know about the phone icon at the top of a text thread in the stock text app...

Good stuff to know...lol wow.

 

[sbenson]

Haha I may be an idiot or it's just the fact that I never notice things, but I didn't even know about the phone icon at the top of a text thread in the stock text app...

Good stuff to know...lol wow.

You're definitely not an idiot. I've had the phone for six months now and I'm still discovering ICS perks. Google really packed it full of improvements over GB.

 

[b-jammin21]

Google really packed it full of improvements over GB.

I can definitely tell. Sometimes when using my phone I think, "Hmmm, I wish I could do *this*." Then, voila! I either find it or I figure out that it already exists by reading about it on the forums. Amazing.