HomeScreen Missed Calls

What do you do if you miss a call on your BlackBerry smartphone? Do you click “View” on the native missed call popup, or do you click close? If I’m busy, I’ll ignore it for the moment and wait to see if a voicemail is left. Besides, I could always check by pressing on the green call button. There is quite a few times where I do forget to check, until hours later. By that time, it’s too late. I do have friends that, annoyingly, do not leave a voicemail, as they expect me to call back out of curiosity (*cough*Isaac*cough). Believe me when I say it’s not because I don’t want to talk to you. Unless it’s you, no not you…you! Yes, I’m probably ignoring you.

HomeScreen Missed Calls takes an interesting approach in telling you who you have just ignored/missed. Those callers you failed to connect with are displayed on your home screen; a constant reminder of how disconnected you actually are. Missed calls are actually represented by pictures/icons, so even if you clear the missed call popup, you can be reminded each time you check your BlackBerry smartphone; which you do almost every 10 minutes or so anyway!

About HomeScreen Missed Calls

HomeScreen Missed Calls was developed by ToySoft Development Inc, which have a rather large application list that ranges from the efficient Shortcut Manager to the Lazaridis hair copying Virtual Hair. They have nearly 100 products in BlackBerry App World, with HomeScreen Missed Calls making its debut less than a week ago. The application is compatible with BlackBerry smartphones running OS 6 or higher. The current version reviewed is 1.0.10 with a file size of only 109KB.

Cost: $0.99

Rating in BlackBerry App World: Not Yet Rated

So as I said before, HomeScreen Missed Calls continuously puts your missed calls on your, you guessed it, your homescreen. These calls show up as icons displaying the oldest calls on the left side. If you’re contacts have images assigned to them, the application will make use of them when displaying the missed calls. If they don’t have an assigned image, a default silhouette is shown; you do have the option to have the phone number of the imageless callers displayed. That helps take the guessing game out of things. Additionally, the time and date are able to be shown (the date, as well as the 24 hour format time, are optional. It doesn’t matter what type of call you receive (known, unknown, private), a missed call entry will be made, using information that typically comes in. Now if you want to keep it simple, you can choose to only see known callers that do have images. Depending on how many calls you receive, you may prefer having as little missed call entries as possible. You can also choose to limit the number of icons to12; 60 is the maximum number. Let’s come back to the setup later, as I want to get going on some of the really cool features that this App has.

HomeScreen Missed Calls list

The images on the home screen are simply there to remind you of who called (and fill your screen with pretty faces). Now open of the application and check them out. It’s here that these icons have some real power, just by tapping/clicking on them. A popup is generated that shows you the number, date and time. Below this, you can also choose to call, email or pin or SMS the number, as well as close the popup. Of course, in order to email or pin, the contact must have those listed in your address book (when it is made automatically accessible). Once you have managed these missed calls, you can wipe them off of the screen by pressing the menu and selecting Clear HomeScreen Calls.

HomeScreen Missed Calls actions

Now before you can get started with all of this, the application forces you to choose a wallpaper folder, which can have as little as one wallpaper or as many as 256. It’s the wallpapers that the missed call icons will be plastered upon. It appears as though each time a call comes in, the wallpaper changes. Alternatively, the application can be set up to randomly switch between wallpapers at intervals between a minute and 6 hours.

HomeScreen Missed Calls settings menu 1
HomeScreen Missed Calls settings menu 2

You may find the default position of the missed call icons a little awkward, as they’re partially hidden to begin with. Through the settings you can change their position by editing the Top Margin value. You have three sizes of icons to decide from; choose between 40x40, 60x60 or 90x90. When it comes to the text displayed on the icons, Homescreen Missed calls has various font sizes and colours to help personalize. This is an added bonus, as the default size of font was really difficult to read, and I just had my vision prescription updated earlier this year too.

Conclusion

With HomeScreen Missed Calls, you can easily look after those you failed to connect with. Normally it’s easy to forget who called you when you clear that missed call popup. When you see their smiling faces, you know you need to return that call eventually. Whether it’s personal calls or business, you’ll benefit from this passive, yet efficient application. You can pick up HomeScreen Missed Calls for $0.99 cents from BlackBerry App World.

More information/download HomeScreen Missed Calls for BlackBerry smartphones

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