iPhone WebClip speed dial

Technology

iphonespeeddial_20080220.jpg

Nate True figured out a quick way to add speed dial icons to your iPhone 1.1.3 home screen:

So the new iPhone 1.1.3 firmware allows you to put icons on your home screen for websites, but I know many of us want to put phone numbers on there for a Speed Dial screen.

I’ve put a little hack together that lets you have a (somewhat) speedy speed dial icon. There’s no jailbreaking required for this one – it can all be done using Apple-approved Web Clip creation.

The difficulty is that it’s not as easy as loading a tel://[phone_number] URL in Safari and then adding a bookmark to the home screen. When you cancel the call, the URL displayed in Safari returns to the previous item in the browser’s history. Nate’s hack is to use a data: URI to redirect to the tel: address. When you cancel the call to add the bookmark, the browser returns to the data: address and you can bookmark that. Since it does an immediate redirect, clicking the link on your home screen will immediately trigger the call dialog.

If you wanted to type the whole thing in, you’d essentially enter something like this in the address bar (all on one line):

data:text/html,<html><head><meta http-equiv='refresh' content='0;url=tel://12345'/></head></html>

Thankfully, Nate put together a page that will do the dirty work for you and generate the appropriate data URI for bookmarking. Just point your iPhone’s Safari address to http://[phonenumber].tel.qlnk.net, then cancel the call and bookmark the resulting link.

For step-by-step photo instructions and info on using a different icon for the speed dial button, just follow the link.

iPhone 1.1.3 Speed Dial on your home screen – Link

0 thoughts on “iPhone WebClip speed dial

  1. Peter says:

    I agree that it’s a little weird to have a robot patrolling the streets, and that most drug dealers wouldn’t leave simply for a water pistol on wheels, but I think the reason it works is because of the spotlight and webcam. They say that having an alarm system or deadbolt lock on your door immediately reduces your chances of having your house broken into simply because it’s easier for a prospective criminal to get caught. I think this works the same way: if you’re dealing crack on the street corner it’s a whole lot easier for the police to see the bags filled with suspicious white powder if there’s a spot light on you.

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