Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review
TapTapDial makes phoning and driving safer
Unless you have voice recognition and Bluetooth in your car, dialing any cellphone can be dangerous to your health. It's truly frightening to see great numbers of commuters fooling around with their phones while trying to drive. Driving is tough enough these days without the distractions; without any tactile feedback on the iPhone, it's especially challenging to operate while in motion.All the more reason for us to take a look at TapTapDial [App Store link]. This $0.99US app makes it easy to dial without looking at your phone and it provides voice, audio, and on screen confirmations, but don't look at that screen!
Describing how to use the app is a lot more difficult than just using it. You can add favorites from your phone book, and the app assigns them a number. If you want to call someone who is in position 3, you tap 3 times. The app will respond audibly with the initials of the person you are calling as a double check. It also will say if the favorite is a home, office, or cell number.
If your list is really long, you can tap on the right side of the screen to go through your list in increments of ten, so if you wanted to call person 31, you would tap 3 times on the right, and once on the left. If you make a mistake, simple swipes left, right, up, or down will move you around your list and provide other navigation functions inside the app. Once you have the person you want, a swipe up or down initiates the call.
You can even dial numbers that aren't in your address book, by tapping on the lower half of the screen. 6 taps dials 6, 3 taps dials 3, and soon. I think this feature is better for the vision impaired. Keeping track of all those taps while driving is probably not a good idea.
This is a clever and needed app that is, as I said, much easier to use than to explain. Some people will get quite addicted to it, and it will certainly result in safer roads and highways. I'd just make sure you have the app up and running before you get in the car, otherwise you'll be doing something dangerous just to get it up and running.
I don't really have any suggestions for the app, other than I think the GUI is not very attractive or contemporary to my eyes. Of course, if you're using the app correctly, you're not looking at it anyway.
Here are some screen shots of TapTapDial in action:
Gallery: TapTapDial
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
funkeboodha said 2:09PM on 5-16-2009
i applaud the idea, but anything out of the home screen sounds really complicated.
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waiownsyou said 2:34PM on 5-16-2009
Seems like a good idea but the app itself looks like a webpage from 1995. wth.
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SpinThis! said 3:29PM on 5-16-2009
> dialing any cellphone can be dangerous to your health.
The real problem isn't fooling around, trying to dial a cellphone—it's actually talking on it. Studies have found when you use/talk on a phone, your brain actually goes elsewhere and you're simply not focused on the road. You think you are but key details are being missed. Driving is not an innate skill—the human eye has serious trouble picking up details faster than 30 mph (or somewhere around there).
I lose count on the number jackasses on phones every day—when I pass them, go figure—it's a phone plugged to their ear. And likely their dominant hand is holding the phone with the less dominant hand on the wheel which makes turning or lane changes even more difficult.
Go read Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt if you need another opinion about driving while using a cellphone. He also details other driving related things, from roundabouts to autonomous robots built to try and cope with traffic (in short, you'd think it would be easy but a robot would easily go haywire in normal traffic).
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Rego said 3:41PM on 5-16-2009
The app sounds completely primitive. An app with speech recognition would make much more sense.
I also feel it is irresponsible (and dangerous) to talk on the phone while you are driving.
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robogobo said 4:47PM on 5-16-2009
or you could just pull over.
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Kevin Duerr said 6:15PM on 5-16-2009
We went with a similar concept on Easy Dials It. For those times when you need it to be dead simple to dial a favorite with one hand (like when you're driving). We also thought there could be plenty of times when speech recognition might be impractical. Double tap to call, tilt to change contacts, and a host of other features.
Check it out:
http://www.riverturn.com/iphone/
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EH1 said 8:53PM on 5-16-2009
Doesn't matter how you dial. Talking on the phone while driving is every bit as bad as doing so drunk, as shown by study after study. Anyone who does so is a dangerous moron. Period.
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PSN: HinchyFC said 2:27AM on 5-17-2009
uninformed != moronic
puhsitch said 5:48PM on 5-17-2009
Is it more dangerous than talking to someone who's sitting in the car with you?
Evil Closet Monkey said 10:42AM on 5-18-2009
@puhsitch -
To a degree it is. Many of the most recent studies have shown that it is actually the conversation (not holding the phone) that is the distraction, causing a increased risk of accidents. In that respect, a conversation with someone in the passenger seat has been shown to be just as distracting.
However, because the other person is in the car with you, they act as a second pair set of eyes to fill the attention gap. They do this both consciously, by yelling out "Dude, what the damned road!", and subconsciously, by actually pausing the conversation themselves in situations the driver might need to attend to the environment (in their mind).
Karen LH said 10:41AM on 5-19-2009
It's not just dangerous when you're driving: it can also be a problem when you're a pedestrian. A young woman in my parents' town was hit (and killed) by a car several years ago because she was talking on her cell phone while crossing the street. She was so focused on the phone call that she wasn't paying attention to the traffic.
The phenomenon is counterintuitive but real. I've noticed it in myself: when I'm on the phone, the world around me seems to fade to gray.
Michael B. said 11:46PM on 5-16-2009
Shuffle Dialer is a much easier way to dial while you're driving! ;) Not that I encourage driving while talking on the phone.
http://iTunes.com/apps/shuffledialer/
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Luna Lovegood said 12:50AM on 5-17-2009
"[I]f you wanted to call person 31, you would tap 3 times on the right, and once on the left."
And I'm supposed to remember who's in the list at #31 and #25 and #9 and so forth?
"If you make a mistake, simple swipes left, right, up, or down will move you around your list and provide other navigation functions inside the app."
Better put AAA in the #1 spot on your list because taking your eyes off the road to engage in all this swiping and "other navigation" will probably cause an accident.
This app is ridiculous.
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David Tyler said 4:36PM on 5-17-2009
This application should also do a GPS lookup and send an SMS to the police to alert them to the dangerous idiot who is trying to dial a telephone and drive at the same time.
How the idea that "some people will get quite addicted to it" will "certainly result in safer roads and highways" baffles me.
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Just_a_guy said 4:36PM on 5-17-2009
why not just show a video of how this works?
wouldn't that help us figure it out?
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llanthomas said 7:26PM on 5-17-2009
It doesn't much matter if you're looking at the screen or not, it's highly irresponsible to focus your hands and mind away from the road. Although I suppose things are slightly different in the US compared to the UK (and Europe); you don't have to change gears and most of your roads are straight and deserted. Which is why texting, dialing, eating food etc. is illegal in the UK if it distracts your attention away from the road, but not in the US.
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Maddy said 3:19AM on 5-18-2009
I don't really have any suggestions for the app, other than I think the GUI is not very attractive or contemporary to my eyes.
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