Dial by Photo

By Christine Morris on February 13th, 2009
Our Rating: :: NOT RECOMMENDED
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

Picture dialing for your contacts, with the ability to phone, message or send an email.

Picture dialing for your contacts, with the ability to phone, message or send an email.

I really wanted to like this application. I love picture dialer applications, and love to see all my contacts by face rather than just a name. The reason I like it is I find it faster to locate someone visually then through reading the contact list. I have tried some similar ones and most of these types of applications still need some work before they are usable day-to-day. The whole point of having a Phone is to be able to phone people. Stating the obvious I realize, but when I click to dial a number I want it to launch fast. This application does not launch fast. In fact, unfortunately it launches so slow that it’s almost unbearable. Even though it has some good features, this makes it unusable for most people. The developers however are addressing this issue. There is also an issue with having more than 20 contacts (slower scrolling) but they are also looking into improving that.

Things I liked about this application was that I like being able to see my contacts, and its great to be able to pick out a photo to dial. It also has a search bar along the top so you can just search for your contacts. Additionally, they include some icons that you may want to use to represent your contact.

The interface needs some improving. I didn’t really ‘get’ the interface. You have all your photos along the bottom, but then you have this scroll wheel thing above it with icons for contacts, messages, phone and email. Rather then click on the icon and it dials or messages, you click and hold the icon of your friends picture, and have to drag it over the icon in that scroll wheel. This is just too time intensive for someone wanting to just click a friend and talk. I actually mistakenly dragged it over the ‘call’ feature when trying to get to the contact book.

In addition to that it only loaded some of my contacts (10). Each one thereafter had to be manually entered. This is not fun, and is tedious process. So much so that I only entered a few people that I call often and left all the ‘essential’ numbers such as doctors, schools and such.

Overall, as much as I wanted to use it, it needs work. I’m not sure in it’s current version that you will find this a useful program. The interface misses the mark and having to manually enter the contacts is tiresome. If you don’t mind those points, it is fun to scroll through contacts and you might want it for that.

DialByPhoto

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Buy Now: $0.99

Our Rating: :: NOT RECOMMENDED
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Released: 2009-01-23 :: Category: Productivity