Speed Dial

Written by G · January 27, 2008 · Filed under Apple, Code, Design, GoSquared, Technology

Speed Dial Now on iPhone

Introducing Speed Dial, the easy way to call the numbers you need most.

Speed Dial is a service provided by GoSquared that lets you bookmark a URL, along with the number you want to call, and add it to your iPhone's Home Screen.

All you need to do is follow these easy steps:

Find a number you call a lot. eg: 118 118

Enter "http://www.gosquared.com/call.php" into Safari on your iPhone, but DON'T hit enter just yet.

Now, put "?n=(your number)" after "http://www.gosquared.com/call.php"

To get an icon for your Speed Dial Number, put "&i=" after your number.

After "&i=" put the URL of your 57x57px Web Clip icon (don't put http:// before the URL)

So, your URL should look something like this:

http://www.gosquared.com/call.php?n=118118&i=www.gosquared.com/images/i/apple-touch-icon_phelp.png

That's the tricky part done. Now just hit enter, and you will be greeted with a screen like this:

speed dial call

For now, just click "Cancel". This is so you can go and bookmark it. Follow the usual procedure: go to the "+" icon, and then "Add to Home Screen".

Now call it whatever you want, for example "Call Home". Your Web Clip icon should show up on your Home Screen.

Just click the icon next time you want to call that important number!

As we like our icons, GoSquared has provided a few to get you started with:

Enjoy.

Many Thanks to Lee Fernandes for contributing to Speed Dial. To run Speed Dial on your own site, check out Lee's site.

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9 Responses so far

  1. 1

    WPCandy said,

    January 27, 2008 @ 1:31 am

    Dude that's soooo sweet! You guys are good :)

    Now to get an iPhone!

  2. 2

    G said,

    January 27, 2008 @ 1:33 am
    Administrator

    Cheers man.

    Yeah the iPhone rocks!

  3. 3

    Jono said,

    January 27, 2008 @ 4:59 pm

    Works a treat, thanks!

  4. 4

    Zdjęcia szybkich kontaktów w iPhone - Apple Blog said,

    January 29, 2008 @ 7:44 pm

    [...] Oryginał tej strony znajdziecie na http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/306 [...]

  5. 5

    Geoff said,

    February 3, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
    Administrator

    test comment

  6. 6

    Nuno Coelho said,

    February 3, 2008 @ 6:02 pm

    ... not that usefull. On any phone you can add a contact to a number. Example, dad is number one. Press 1, call... thats it.

  7. 7

    G said,

    February 3, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
    Administrator

    Nuno, We never said it would be useful to anyone who doesn't own an iPhone!

  8. 8

    Taylor said,

    February 20, 2008 @ 5:32 am

    This is eerie because I had been thinking about this SDK idea for a long time before I saw this here. What I have is a tweaked, improved solution to make these native apps (only available when the SDK arrives) more tasty.

    Everyone knows how polished, lustrous, and cartoonish (for lack of a better word) the Youtube icon looks on the iPhone home screen. It's like Toy Story compared to the old school Disney of the Palm's icons. It makes you feel good to look at it. You get the point.

    What about a square icon that looked like a pizza baking dish. I'd like to keep it square because it blends in more nicely with the other square icon looks on the home screen. Now, half of the metal pizza baking dish would be filled with a pizza with myriad toppings, maybe just Pepperoni. The other half would have a few crumbs, i.e., the empty half of the baking dish.

    Tapping it would automatically dial the local pizza place you call to normally get delivery from. It might call the local Pizza Hut, Domino's, or Campisi's. This would be programmed ahead of time in so it would automatically call in. There would be no confirmation dialog box after you tapped it. Efficiency. More than efficiency. The user would connect the pizza icon with the pizza phone call in a 1 to 1 connect. Instead, they would connect the pizza icon with the confirmation, and its not psychologically courteous.

    This idea gets even juicier when the iPhone's 9 home screens are considered. One whole page could be devoted to food delivery and take-out icons. You would have your homepage and then swipe over with one finger swipe to see 12 or so food delivery icons. Hmm ... I'll have pizza, Chinese, Italian, etc.

    The Chinese food icon could be a square fried rice box. Having icons for the restaurant itself is too specific. You can always have different pizza looks for different pizza joints, and it just preserves the food-like look of the delivery "screen". The iPhone suddenly becomes more powerful. It's become a menu. The key part that's fun is in making the pizza dish and pizza inside as beautiful as the Youtube icon. Half of the fun in looking at the iPhone are the icons.

  9. 9

    G said,

    February 20, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
    Administrator

    Taylor, that's an awesome idea!

    It would be really cool if you could grab the "locate me" technology from Google Maps to find the nearest take aways, and if, say more than one exists in the local area, a dialogue box would appear just as in Google Maps.

    We really would like to get into making an app or two for the iPhone when the SDK comes out, but we still don't have enough info on what it's gonna be like! eg: what language will apps be written in, will they be distributed through iTunes, how much freedom will there be on what apps we can actually make etc.

    We seem to have a sudden need for Cocoa developers lately - if anyone knows Cocoa give us a shout!!

    Cheers.

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