DialByPhoto v1.0 Review

The Treo smartphone has become almost an ubiquitous sight in the business community, right up there with the BlackBerries from our Canadian buddies from Waterloo.  It's a machine that just works, which is vital in a business environment.  However, both Research in Motion and Palm have recently released devices that are being pushed to the mass market, with the corporate power of their devices now being translated into a more consume-friendly model.  Have they succeeded?  Well, in terms of functionality I'd say yes, but in terms of the "look" of the software, they've got a ways to go.

Enter DialByPhoto from GX5.

Installing the single PRC file transforms your Treo 650, 700p, or 680's Phone interface into a much, much, prettier sight.  You may have seen a few reviews of this program floating around already, but today we take a step-by-step look at the major functions of the program after it has been spiced up a bit.  Default looks are so boring, even though DialByPhoto (DBP) is lightyears ahead of even the revamped interface on the Treo 680.  As a previous user of Skinner on my old Treo 650, I was used to skinning my phone app, but this is something else altogether!  Geoff and I got together on campus and took DBP for a spin on his EVDO-powered Treo 700p as well as on my 680 a little while back, but unfortunately I got really sick after that but now I'm shipshape and here's the review!

Firing up the program for the first time (or after a reset) presents you with a white loading screen at first, then after a few seconds, the gorgeous interface pops up.  The pictures from this review are all from my personal Treo 680, and as such it only serves as an example for what one can do with this program.  Geoff's was using the default look, and screenshots of that can be found in the press release for this program a few posts back or at the GX5 site.  Click on the thumbnail for a larger view of what my main screen looks like!  The main attraction of DBP is in its name, that is, you can dial a number by simply tapping or selecting a photo that you associate with it.  Here I've got my home, my mum, and a friend showing in this initial view.  Scrolling left and right takes you through the entire list of photo contacts in whichever direction you want, which is convenient.  If you set up a lot of photo contacts (as each pic is called), you can view them by categories instead of seeing all of them at the same time.  The beauty of the program is that it closely integrates with the built-in Phone and Contacts programs, so that it also takes the categories from the database.  No extra steps to set that up here!

Web access is also built into this initial screen, with a nice translucent address bar if you select "Web".  You get your choice of a generic address bar to launch sites directly, Google, a local business search, Wikipedia, and a dictionary.  On Geoff's Treo we tried the Google search and up popped Blazer and off it went!  Very nice.  Tapping on the small vertical arrow expands the photos view, with a the screen now taken up by nine photos.  Tapping on the arrow takes you back to the default start screen.  One more view is available as well, where the "photo ribbon" is positioned at the bottom of the screen with (or without) a few menu items at the top, and this is a great view if you have, say, someone's picture as your background as their faces are not covered by anything. If you tap on the upper right area of the start screen, a pop up, well, pops up and shows you the status of the phone connection, Bluetooth, your network and your battery status, twice! Like tapping on the screen when entering numbers, or someone who doesn't know how to use a Treo (how could you not?  haha) needs to borrow your Treo for a quick call?  Call up the dial pad and you get a really pretty alternative.  Personally, I don't care about how much memory it eats up (when running, at least a megabyte or two), as the cool translucency makes everything better.  (:  A nice feature that is shared with the default Phone app is that if you choose to have the Treo start a contact search when you start typing on the keyboard, if you switch to the dial pad your number pad reverts back to numbers and you can dial in a number this way without ever touching the screen. Click for bigger, prettier pictures. So where's the rest of the phone app's functions?  They're all present, and easily accessible from the main screen. The call log and contacts selections on the start screen can lead you to skinned versions within DBP or, if you choose, to the default Treo ones.  It should be noted that some options, like deleting a call log and any sort of editing of contacts, is missing within DBP.  If a future version of DBP allowed for the editing and adding of contacts, I'll be one happy (happier) camper!  Also, a delightful feature is that pressing Backspace on most of these screens brings you back to the start screen.  Very handy!

The menus and settings are intuitive and easy to use.  When you add a new photo contact, DBP automatically uses the picture in the built-in Contacts app, if you've already specified a photo there.  Very nice!  The only complaints that I have are that using icons instead of photos requires a tedious process.  Well, most of that process is waiting for things to load, which is an annoyance.  Geoff and I took the icon management bits for a spin and found that downloading icon sets didn't quite work.  We made sure it wasn't the connection, tried it again, and it still wouldn't work.  There are a total of four available sets right now, and although they are really well done, there are quite a few icons that appear in more than one set. I think that allowing users to add their own photos into their own icon/picture set and allowing them to share it via a file or Bluetooth would make a nice option as well! Two other screens to note are the "calling" and "ignore with SMS" screens. Once you initiate a call from within DBP, there is a bit of lag before you're quicked to the normal dialing/on a call screen for the Treo, so the calling screen justs add extra waiting time at the moment.  However, if the entire phone call experience stayed within DBP without going back to the Treo dialer, that would indeed be quite an improvement!  The "ignore with SMS" screen is somewhat redundant on the Treo 700p and 680, as that is already an option in the notification window when someone calls you. The one in DBP is a slight improvement as you can pre-define messages and add smilies to them. So then, in the end this is an awesome improvement over the basic phone interface, and it's relatively inexpensive at US$14.95. There are various promotions out for it too, which makes it quite nice indeed!  This review was done on version 1.0, but a new beta is already out and it adds a few nifty new features!  I use it daily on my Treo, and except for the slight lag when you start a call, I'm totally in love with it.  Well, maybe not in love, but I do count it as another indispensable piece of software in my little arsenal!  A big thanks to Tunji Afonja and the good people at GX5 for your work!