I wanted to write a poem today, but it turns out that nothing rhymes with Dialvetica ($1.99), aside from the obviously related Helvetica font and the directly related Calvetica app, so let me put it this way: you know that dialer app you didn’t know you needed? I’ve found it and it doesn’t rhyme with anything (aside from…).
The developers at Mysterious Trousers are obviously very cheeky folk (in the regular facial cheek sense, not the trouser-related butt sense). I know this because of the existence of the Dialvetica splash screen and the very strange dialogue box entitled “exclamation text” in the app settings.
It’s not terribly obvious what this text is for until you tap on a contact within Dialvetica whose details are missing, at which point you’ll find out that “exclamation text” is really just a customisable error pop-up. Cheeky.
The rest of Dialvetica is very, very straightforward, though (it’s downright forward-leaning). The app presents you with your list of contacts from your iPhone’s address book, and there are on-screen buttons to call, e-mail, or text a person in your list.
There are two interesting details to mention at this point. The first is that tapping on any button for the first time will bring up a dialogue to select the default for a given contact (i.e. you’ll get to choose which e-mail address, mobile number, or phone number counts as the default). Very nice, very simple. `
The second little detail I appreciate is how direct all of these functions are once the defaults have been set. Tapping on a name will start a call immediately (no stupid pop-up asking for verification), tapping on e-mail will load up a new message with the To: field filled out, and tapping on SMS will load up your actual conversation with the person within the Messages app.
Of course, all of these buttons would be useless if Dialvetica didn’t make it easy to filter contacts quickly. Fortunately, the app features a killer keyboard design that helps you find contacts in one to three taps. The Dialvetica keyboard doesn’t feature keys, so much as it does clamps. Each letter stays active once pressed, and the app is smart enough to find contacts based on the keys you’ve activated, regardless of the other.
This means that I can tap on the “P”, “Y”, and “S” keys and have my friend Psycho pop up at the top of the Dialvetica list, even though I typed the letters out of order. However, Dialvetica also seems to adjust its lists based on my most-used contacts, so I now only ever have to tap on “P” to bring Psycho right up to the top. This filtering system isn’t perfect, though, since I have a few names that I have *never* contacted that are, nonetheless, always at the top of my Dialvetica list.
That’s really all there is to the app and, aside from future bug fixes, I think this is really all that Dialvetica will ever need to be. It’s lightning fast, features a very low memory footprint (3-5 MB of RAM, as far as I can tell), and it’s much faster than the default iPhone dialer.
If I had one little wish, I’d probably ask for integration with a few text-message replacement apps like WhatsApp Messenger, but even if that never comes along, I’ll be just fine. It’s really not very often that I’m completely happy with an app right out of the box, but I’m very happy to have stumbled upon this exception.
—
Dialvetica was provided by Mysterious Trousers for review on iSource. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS:
