CallApp: Dialer Replacement, Data Sharing & VoIP Calling Android App With Social Media Integration
Quality dialer replacement apps for Android smartphones are hard to find, but in CallApp, you get far more options than you’d have ever imagined to have at your discretion while making and receiving phone calls. First things first; CallApp vows to be a ‘universal social contact book’ for your Android phone. Social, in a sense that it pulls critical and updated information from various renowned online businesses and social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google +, and Google Mail – to show all the latest updates regarding your callers. Be it the last interaction that you made with your contact via email, text messages, or on a social network, your CallApp caller ID screen has you covered. In addition, this Holo-themed app helps users easily take notes whilst attending calls, and lets them share reminders, meetings, contacts, location, photos, apps, URLs and more with other CallApp users over the web for free. That’s not all; CallApp also supports linking your phone contacts’ social accounts with their phone numbers, and allows customizing caller ID screen for each individual contact number stored on your Android device’s address book.
Another useful feature of CallApp is that it supports fetching updated information regarding various online businesses and services (Google Maps, Yelp et al) to show you brief info regarding the incoming calls from unknown numbers, so that you get an idea as to what the call could be about. Then, the app also features Viber and WhatsApp-like free, high quality VoIP calling with other app users through its CallApp plus (requires accessing and uploading your contact book to CallApp servers). If you were looking for an app that announces (speaks aloud) the name of the caller, and momentarily displays the caller ID screen even after the call ends, you get your wish with CallApp.
CallApp integrates smoothly with your Android device’s stock dialer app, and presents you with up-do-date information regarding the callers’ latest online activities across several networks. The app sports its own native caller ID interface, wherein you get an additional CallApp button alongside the default call button. Tapping the former reveals a scrollable pane (on the right side) that house the option to create new notes, and share required content with the selected contact. It is also from within the same pane that you can block a specific caller from indulging in any activities with you.
When launched, the app’s intro screen actually says it all in one phrase, “The more (social) networks you connect, the better experience you’ll get”. Next up, it’s time to authorize the app to access all your preferred social network accounts. In case the app manages to pull some doubtful social info regarding a contact, it puts a tiny question mark sign alongside the relevant social service’s icon, and suggests various matches that help you manually rectify the issue.
Just like the default dialer app, CallApp also displays the profile picture of the caller via a thumbnail. Above the thumbnail, you get to see your contact’s name, and all the various social network accounts (Skype, WhatsApp et al inclusive) that they’ve associated with their phone number. Tapping the menu button in the bottom-right side of the screen takes you to the contact management screen from where you can modify various settings.
For instance, from said screen, you can link the selected contact’s social accounts with CallApp to help it fetch and display the latest and more relevant information pertaining to the contact whenever he/she tries to contact you via a phone call. Also, from this settings screen, you can select various interactions (and their exact order) that the app should display on the aforementioned right pane.
Furthermore, you can specify the preferred screen size for incoming calls, set the post-call (caller ID) screen duration, toggle the caller name announcement feature On/Off, and decide whether you wish to avail the free VoIP calling options via the app’s CallApp plus feature or not. Worried about your personal info being shared across your phone contacts? Worry not, as CallApp can only access that information from your social profiles which you’ve decided to share publicly. Although not entirely perfect, CallApp is easily one of the most feature-packed dialer replacement apps that we’ve come across so far. iOS users, for now, can take heart from the fact that an iPhone variant of the app is already in the pipelines, and should make it to their devices soon. The app’s official intro video is provided below.
CallApp is a free app that requires Android v2.2 or higher to run.
