Today's conference activity

Discussions around the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch versions of the Member Tools Application.
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toonetown
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Today's conference activity

#1

Post by toonetown »

Today, during conference, I decided to prototype something that my father in law has been asking me for. He serves in a university student stake, where there is a lot of turnover. He is always getting phone calls from new members of his stake, and was wondering if there was a way for LDS tools to automatically update his address book in bulk (and stay in sync).

With that thought in mind, I actually wrote up a quick CallKit Caller Identification Extension that would register the phone numbers for those members of his stake from the LDS tools directory. It worked beautifully as a prototype - unknown phone numbers would be looked up whenever a call came in. It was very straightforward to do.

I only mention it because I think it would be a really cool feature to include with LDS Tools - a CallKit caller ID extension. My solution relied upon sniffing the directory update from LDS Tools using a MITM proxy and then bulk importing it into a one-off developer app (which is not practical, updatable, or even allowed...hence my referring to it as a "prototype"). More than anything, it was a diversion to satisfy my own curiosity as to whether or not it would be possible - but it ended up being not only much easier to implement than I had originally expected, but it also seemed (at first glance) to be something that would be useful in day-to-day use.

I just thought I'd throw out the idea, in case it might be implemented in a future version of LDS Tools. I have since deleted and removed my prototype from my laptop and my phone - as it wasn't really usable in its current state, and I understand that only the official apps are to use the directory API. However, if the developers would like some pointers or help implementing it officially, I'm willing to help where I can.
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sbradshaw
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Re: Today's conference activity

#2

Post by sbradshaw »

Hi, I agree that this would be a great feature. You should send in-app feedback to make sure it gets to the product managers and developers. Make sure to mention CallKit and iOS 10 – caller ID has been requested on iOS for several years (Android LDS Tools already has it), but in the past, those requests have been put on a back burner because iOS didn't support it. Now it does, so there's no technical reason they can't have feature parity with Android!
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russellhltn
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Re: Today's conference activity

#3

Post by russellhltn »

Android may have it, but I've not found it particularly useful. It shows up in the notification - where it's not real easy to get to while the phone is locked and ringing. Maybe I'm overlooking something. So depending on how iOS handles it, it may not be all that useful.
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Mikerowaved
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Re: Today's conference activity

#4

Post by Mikerowaved »

russellhltn wrote:Android may have it, but I've not found it particularly useful...
I found the same thing. All I can tell from the icon (that I don't have time to open while the phone is ringing) is someone from my stake is calling.
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lajackson
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Re: Today's conference activity

#5

Post by lajackson »

Mikerowaved wrote:
russellhltn wrote:Android may have it, but I've not found it particularly useful...
I found the same thing. All I can tell from the icon (that I don't have time to open while the phone is ringing) is someone from my stake is calling.
Same here, but I do get the name of the individual in the notification if I wait an extra ring to answer the phone.
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sbradshaw
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Re: Today's conference activity

#6

Post by sbradshaw »

I haven't seen an app that uses CallKit in person on iOS 10, but from what I've seen online, the OS seems to allow pretty good integration so you can display the person's name directly on the lock screen without going through a notification. I haven't seen Android caller ID in person, either, though.

Here's an article that talks mainly about blocking spam calls, but I think it would work the same way:
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/09/14 ... ls-iphone/

Here's another example with screenshots:
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/07/truec ... extension/

I'd be interested in seeing some screenshots of your app, if you have any (blurring actual names/numbers, of course).
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
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