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Doney den Ouden
DockPhone — Make phone calls right from your Mac
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Ryan Hoover
I'm surprised this isn't already offered natively on OS X (or does it?). P.S. Weird music choice and the closing "heyyy" is kind of comical. :)
Brett deMarrais
@rrhoover I think it is now if you have Yosemite (10.10) and iOS 8 through handoff. I have made and received several calls through my mac. My guess is this was in development and then Apple announced the almost identical feature (which happens often). http://www.macworld.com/article/...
Micah Baldwin
Would love to hear how this is an improvement over making the call directly through FaceTime.
Raffael H.
Maker
@micah Good question! I always felt like FaceTime's UI isn't ideal if you just wanna make a call. It feels like it has not been specifically designed for the purpose of initiating calls (well of course not, FaceTime is video calling primarily). That's why I developed DockPhone to provide a dedicated app in your Dock just to make calls from your Mac. Nothing else. Next, the included Today widget, and the Dictation feature make it quite unique. Just dictate the name or the phone number you want to call. During development I quickly got used to making use of this!
Ryan Hoover
@micah @raffael_me this could be particularly useful for those that make back to back calls in the office. FaceTime wouldn't be able to make calls to non-iOS devices.
Micah Baldwin
@raffael_me @rrhoover hey guys - quick update. I use handoff primarily vs. Skype these days (great to grab my phone if I have to walk away from my computer). DockPhone is a really nice UI. Well done, added to my daily app use
Raffael H.
Maker
@micah I'm happy the app eventually could convince you!
Micah Baldwin
@raffael_me only thing that would make it better is for it to collapse into the menubar and autorun on login.
Sapan Bhuta
@raffael_me This is fantastic, love the Alfred/Spotlight like UI!
Raffael H.
Maker
@SapanBhuta I'm happy you like it!
Raffael H.
Maker
I'm super happy to see my app here on ProductHunt! If you have any suggestions or questions, let me know :-)! Feedback is always welcomed.
Raffael H.
Maker
Thanks Ryan. Well I need to explain that in detail: In fact, DockPhone kind of is built on top of FaceTime's capabilities. As you know, originally FaceTime was basically meant to provide video chat between two AppleIDs. Then they've added audio-only chat using VoIP. And recently, in Yosemite, they've also added the capability to not only call AppleIDs, but to call any number you desire, using the carrier connection of your iPhone if it's nearby. However most of the people I asked didn't know that they can use their Mac's FaceTime app to call any arbitrary number, because it's kind of hidden, and cumbersome to use. So I thought, Hey, we need a dedicated app to make it crystal-clear, that you can use your Mac as a phone basically. This is what DockPhone is about. :)
Jason Weingardt
Isn't this kind of already offered via Continuity Keypad, but for free? http://www.producthunt.com/posts... Edit: guess Continuity Keypad isn't free. MAS link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/...
Raffael H.
Maker
@jason_weingardt it's definitely similar, but I've added several additional features which I think are unique. Check out VoiceDial for example, the dictation function, which lets you speak a number so you don't have to type it out :). Also, I spent quite some time designing the Today widget thoughtfully.