Lumiappaday #21: Fake Call demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800

First – warning, this is yet another ‘useless app’. Why am I still sharing it? Well it has some sentimental value in that it was one of the first and memorable apps I had on my Symbian powered Nokia 7610 all the way back…what 2005? And to be fair, there may be some use for it, just rare but when it’s used it’s the most useful thing ever.

This is called Fake Calling (or now Fake Call – name has changed in the marketplace) – basically, it can simulate an incoming call from anyone. Why? Well haven’t you ever been in a situation where you just wish there was an important call you had to take that would excuse you from it? From a long dreary meeting at work or you’ve met someone from a club or a date you can’t get away from? Maybe prank friends by getting an incoming call in a subway or somewhere that no one else has signal or get calls from famous people? I dunno.

#21) Fake Call

Price: Free

Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/apps/88937d28-03d1-df11-9eae-00237de2db9e

Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf-soY6S5Vs

Developer Blurb:

This application helps you out of bad dates and gives you an excuse to leave meetings! It simulates your phone’s response to an incoming call, including activating a ring tone and animating the screen.

It now can have literally every option of a call screen set!

Just like setting an alarm, simply set the time and set the phone down 🙂

Rating: 9

Design: 8

The look of the app is mainly clean and plain black panorama with settings for the simulated lock screen view, The fake person view, and general. The settings we’ll look at in a bit. That’s the bare bones of it. When you activate it, you have what looks like the WP lock screen, then a replicated caller screen which you can interact with (accept call/ignore and even play around with the other buttons). If you swipe the homescreen up you have fake homescreen. Press restart to restart it.

One real lock screen, the other fake. You can customise your own image.

The settings menu could do with a bit of livening up perhaps?

Usability: 9

It’s fairly simple enough to use. Each customizable portion is grouped up well.

Under lock screen you can:

• customize date, time , name of appointment, location and the start time that shows on screen
• Change the image of your lockscreen (this pulls up all your albums as with other apps, very quick gallery)

This will behave like a real call.

You can answer it or ignore the call. The call timer continues to count up.

You can even press more settings.

After  finishing you return to a fake homescreen. You can only interact with the restart button.

Not bad though some things I would like:

• Default set the time to current time, change if you want but hard to keep changing it each time (not that other people would notice.
• Choose what part of the image appears as the caller page
• Choose the ringtone – currently you are set to their ringtone. Perhaps use the default one if there’s access to it?
• Maybe produce a muffled sound or repeat what the voice has said in an altered pitch?

Performance: 9

As usual, fast start up, fast to use, quick and stable. The main issue unfortunately is that you cannot lock your screen as this won’t currently work under a locked phone (like other apps). Shame as it’s pretty useful to have the phone locked as you don’t want to leave the fake lockscreen on for like 20 minutes.

Please possibly update to work under a lock screen.

Price: 10

Free and no ads

Category: Applications, Lumiappaday, Nokia, Windows Phone