As much as I love the iPhone, I find myself fumbing trying to actually dial contacts that are not in my favorites list. It would be fantastic is someone could develop a dial pad that works pretty much exactly like the Windows Mobile dialer.
The way this works on Win Mobile: as soon as you start typing numbers, the phone looks for any contact in which that combination of letters or numbers occurs. For example, if you dial 2 3 (which could mean '2abc' '3def'), it looks for contacts with either '23' or 'ad' or 'ae' or 'af' or 'bd' or 'be' or ... ANYWHERE in the contact info. As this is done, the list of possible matches is reduced, and usually with four presses you find the intended contact.
Why is this better than the standard dialer? Well, 1. since you use the 'classic' dialpad, the buttons are large, so easier to hit. 2. You start in search mode, so no scrolling needed, not even to find the search box, and 3. even if you start just dialing the actual number, the dialer offers matches, which works as an 'autocompletion suggestion'.
Layout may be a bit tricky, since both keypad and results need to fit on the screen. Perhaps copy the standard iphone dial pad, but put the numbers to the left of the letters so that the keys can be less tall. That would leave some room for the search results at the top. But perhaps there is a better way?
Now maybe this already exists, in which case a pointer to the app would be much appreciated! -pgk
The way this works on Win Mobile: as soon as you start typing numbers, the phone looks for any contact in which that combination of letters or numbers occurs. For example, if you dial 2 3 (which could mean '2abc' '3def'), it looks for contacts with either '23' or 'ad' or 'ae' or 'af' or 'bd' or 'be' or ... ANYWHERE in the contact info. As this is done, the list of possible matches is reduced, and usually with four presses you find the intended contact.
Why is this better than the standard dialer? Well, 1. since you use the 'classic' dialpad, the buttons are large, so easier to hit. 2. You start in search mode, so no scrolling needed, not even to find the search box, and 3. even if you start just dialing the actual number, the dialer offers matches, which works as an 'autocompletion suggestion'.
Layout may be a bit tricky, since both keypad and results need to fit on the screen. Perhaps copy the standard iphone dial pad, but put the numbers to the left of the letters so that the keys can be less tall. That would leave some room for the search results at the top. But perhaps there is a better way?
Now maybe this already exists, in which case a pointer to the app would be much appreciated! -pgk