⇥ Introducing sight-free dialing for the iPhone
A few weeks back, I stumbled upon this video by the Google engineers who have been working on the eyes-free project for Android and I found it very interesting. At the same time, I found their solution a little awkward in that it relies on the user’s sensing the boundaries between virtual keys using tactile feedback—something that I don’t think able-bodied people (who can still benefit from this kind of technology to safely use the phone without looking at the screen) will be able to easily do.
After a few days of head-banging, I convinced my partner Arbi Arzoumani that this would make a good project for our nascent AFK Studio, the boutique iPhone development that we started earlier in the year.
Therefore, I am happy to announce the release of DialX, the world’s first sight-free dialer for the iPhone capable of dialing arbitrary phone numbers without looking at the screen. We have a complete list of capabilities over the at the DialX site, but, as they say, a video is worth a thousand words, so here we go:
I have a few coupons for a free copy of DialX available. If you would like one, please DM me on Twitter (@mtabini) and I will be happy to oblige (as long as I have any left). Please note that these coupons are good only for the US iTunes App Store.
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Comments
It is kinda hard to figure out exactly what it happening when you are dialing numbers.
If possible you should also do some close-up scenes of someone’s finger dialing.
Are you doing a press-slide or a press-release-slide for 0-9. How do you do a 5?
Awesome idea, one of the things keeping me from using an iphone is that it’s harder to use while driving because of the lack of tactile feedback.
However the times that I actually dial a number by pressing digits are minimal, I hardly know people’s phone number these days as every device has an addressbook; would it be possible to apply this concept to an addressbook as well?
Josh—I agree; we’re doing a live video soon.
Ivo—integration with the address book is coming with version 1.5 (free upgrade). There are some minor items that still need ironing out.
Oh, Josh—a 5 is a simple single tap. For the other digits, you push, slide in the desired direction and release.
As for the other question you asked me, they’re pulling the wrong feed. I sent them the correct one, but they haven’t had a chance to replace it yet.