App Directory: The Best Speed Dialler For iPhone

There are a handful of speed diallers for iPhone that have very little to differentiate them, but Tacts rises up amongst the bunch thanks to its superior interface and numerous contact management features.

• Dial a number normally or using T9.
• Searches for the number as you dial so you don’t necessarily need to dial the enter number to place a call.
• Tap any contact for several quick calling, texting and emailing options.

Note: These features primarily correspond to the Tacts keypad add-on. Tacts is a fully featured contact manager with several other features, but we’re concentrating on just this one. If you’d like to explore Tacts more in depth, you can find addition information on its web site and in our initial review.

Like most speed diallers on the iPhone, Tacts offers two ways to use the keypad. The first way is the traditional method, in which you dial the number you want to dial and press the call button. The second is searching for the number using the T9 method. Basically, you type the number that corresponds to the letter in the name you want to dial and Tacts searches in real time for the number you’re looking for. You can see in the screenshot above that I typed my last name in numbers and it brought up members of my family.

Aside from its interface, which is nicer than pretty much any other dialler you’ll come across (by far), there isn’t a lot the Tacts dialler does that’s much better than other apps. The interface is fluid and it teaches you how to use it, but other than that it isn’t much different. The biggest advantage, however, is the Tacts app itself. Tacts isn’t actually a speed dialler app, but rather a very good (although not our favourite) contact management app. It’s really handy for sorting, finding and bulk editing/deleting your contacts. This part of Tacts is free, and it’s just the dialler the costs you $1.99 as an in-app purchase. As a result, you can download Tacts and test out the dialer before you buy it to see if you like it. Even if you don’t find it’s worth the money, you may really like Tacts as an address book alternative anyhow.

Tacts doesn’t really have many disadvantages. It can’t replace the iPhone dialer directly, but that’s Apple’s restrictions at work and not a fault of the app. It looks nice, works as you’d expect, and is also a great contact management app. There just isn’t any downside worth mentioning.

iSmartDialer ($US4) is the main competition you’d want to consider if you’re jailbroken because it can actually replace the default iPhone dialer and offers the same T9 search. You can also enable and disable T9 search by shaking your phone. If you’re not jailbroken, you can buy the regular iPhone version, which doesn’t replace the dialler, and is currently on sale for $US1.

Genius Dialer ($2), TAKEphONE ($1.99), and TAKEphONE Lite (free) are all other options that do pretty much the same thing as iSmartDialer.

Lifehacker’s App Directory is a growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools across multiple platforms.