Thursday, 1 October 2020

5 best dialer apps and contacts apps for Android

best dialer apps and contacts apps featured image
Update: This list currently has Drupe as an entrant. It is a really good contacts and dialer app. However, recent security vulnerabilities are causing a big fuss about the app. The security vulnerabilities are gone now. Thus, we’re reinstating the app to our list with a word of caution to our readers. Hit the link to learn more.


Dialer apps and contacts apps are a bit of a niche market. In most cases, the stock dialer and contacts app is more than good enough most of the time. However, there are some cases where it may be necessary. The Note 8 occasionally freezing while using the contacts app is a good example. In any case, there are a bunch of decent options, but only a few really good ones. Also, we considered doing separate lists for contacts apps and dialer apps. However, generally speaking, if you get one, you get the other too. Both lists would pretty much have the same apps. Thus, we’ve consolidated it into a single list here. Here are the best dialer apps and contacts apps for Android.

  1. Calls.AI
  2. Drupe
  3. Simple Contacts Pro
  4. Simpler Caller ID
  5. Truecaller
  6. True Phone Dialer

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Calls.AI

Price: Free

Calls.AI is a professional caller ID app designed specifically for business owners. When someone calls, you’ll get a heads up with important information about them, so you’re never caught off-guard again. It also tackles CRM needs with task management features so you can stay on topic with teammates and clients. Calls.AI even offers a customizable customer tagging system to support your sales pipeline. You can instantly create price proposals to send prospective customers directly from the app.

If research before the call isn’t enough, Calls.AI manages all of your previous engagements and meeting notes so you can look back and find the information you need. Calls.AI takes everything you need in a smartphone and packs it right into your dialer.

calls ai composite

Credit: Calls.AI

Drupe

Price: Free / Up to $3.99

Drupe is one of the most popular dialer apps on mobile. It features a modern, beautiful interface along with a call recorder, smart dialer, call blocker, and methods to deal with duplicate contacts. It can even send GIFs to people when you call them, but both people need to have Drupe installed for that to work. The app covers all of the basics and does many of them better than the stock app. It has the occasional bug, but nothing serious. It’s free to download for the most part. Some features require purchase via in-app purchases. This app also had a security issue earlier in 2018. It’s resolved now, but we still recommending treading with caution with this one.


Simple Contacts Pro

Price: $1.19

Simple Contacts is, well, a simple contacts app. It requires no extraneous permissions and it has no fancy tricks up its sleeve. It’s just a simple app for managing your contacts. You can also manage email contacts as well as events. There is also a dialer as well. That’s about all this app does, really, and that’s okay. Sometimes you want to strip away the extra niceties and just have a simple place to manage your contacts list. This app does that admirably. It’s also open source and has no ads. There is a free version. However, it’s not longer under active development in favor of the premium version. Thus, if you want the actively developed version, it runs $1.19. We think that’s reasonable

Simple Contacts Pro screenshot 2020

Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Simpler Caller ID

Price: Free / Up to $9.99

Simpler isn’t as popular as some other dialer apps or contacts apps. It probably should be. Simpler features an improved caller ID, functions to control duplicate contacts, social network support, over 40 themes, and more. It also has call blocking, offline backup, and tools to clean up your contact list a little bit. The app rounds everything up in a simple, good-looking Material Design interface. There really isn’t much wrong with this one aside from a bugs here and there. The app is free to download with an optional pro version available via in-app purchase.

Simpler Caller ID screenshot 2019


Truecaller

Price: Free / $1.99 per month / $17.99 per year

Truecaller is one of the most popular and powerful contacts apps and dialer apps. It even works as an SMS app. It includes a laundry list of features for the dialer, contacts, and SMS portions of the app. That includes an SMS spam filter, call blocking, dual-SIM support, and a lot more. It also boasts the best caller ID out there. The interface uses a basic Material Design. We’re not going to complain about that! The only real downside is the price. This is one of the only dialer apps or contacts apps with a subscription. It’s not necessary to use the basic features, but $17.99 per year is a little steep for our tastes.


True Phone Dialer

Price: Free / Up to $9.99

True Phone Dialer is one of the most popular dialer apps on Android. It has a lot of decent design and functionality options. The app shows large pictures of the caller and you can set the style to match a lot of popular OEMs like Google, Apple, and others. The customization is quite nice and the functionality works too. You can add various bits of information to a person’s contact profile like their birthday or other notes. The app seems to work fine for most folks and it worked fine in our testing. However, some complain about the phone not waking up to show them a caller ID during phone calls.

True Phone Dialer screenshot 2020

Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority

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If we missed any great dialer apps or contacts apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists!



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The best movies on Hulu (October 2020)

Hulu movies for kids stock photo 2

Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

With over 25 million subscribers in the US, Hulu is one of the biggest premium video streaming services. In addition to its many exclusive, current and classic TV shows, it’s also the home for thousands of movies as well, some of which are also exclusive to the service. But which are the best movies on Hulu?

Read more: How to get Hulu for free

With Hulu permanently cutting its ad-based subscription tier to just $5.99 a month, more people will likely be checking out Hulu’s catalog of films. We have picked our top 10 best movies on Hulu to stream and enjoy, and they are a mix of classic movies with more recent films.

If you want to sign up for Hulu, make sure to also consider the Disney Plus-Hulu-ESPN Plus bundle, which gives you three great streaming services for one lower price. You can sign up for the bundle at the link below.

The best movies on Hulu

Editor’s note: We will be updating this post as movies leave Hulu and others join the service’s film library.


1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

star trek 2 the wrath of khan

Credit: Paramount

This 1982 movie remains the best movie in the 13-film Star Trek franchise. It was the first to show the cast of the original Star Trek TV series feeling the effect of age, especially William Shatner’s Captain Kirk. It also shows the effects of decisions that were made by Kirk years ago. Khan, the superhuman that Kirk exiled on a planet after the events of the “Space Seed” TV episode, is back, and he only has revenge on his mind. There’s great space battles as Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise battle Khan and his group of followers. It also has one of the best, and saddest, endings in sci-fi film history. It’s one of the best movies on Hulu.


2. The Cabin In the Woods

the cabin in the woods

Bad horror films include obvious stereotypes. This 2011 release takes those typical stereotypes (including the subject of the movie’s title) and turn them 180 degrees. The result is a movie that’s frightening, funny, and full of unexpected twists. Let’s just say that five college students who think they are going to a “cabin in the woods” will encounter more than just people waiting to kill them.


3. Akira

Japanese anime became a huge part of American culture starting in the 1990s and part of the reason was the release of this incredible 1988 sci-fi film based on the best-selling Japanese manga comic book of the same name from Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in the year 2019 in a future version of Tokyo, Akira still has some incredible visuals even when looked upon in today’s CGI animated films. It has some powerful imagery that will not leave your head anytime soon, thanks in part to the movie’s main character Tetsuo, who has to deal with his new and powerful psychic abilities. Hulu gives you the choice of watching Akira with subtitles and the original Japanese audio, or in an English dubbed version. It’s not only one of the best movies on Hulu, but the best anime film on Hulu.


4. How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

how to train your dragon

If you have kids, they likely are fans of the How To Train Your Dragon movie series. Hulu now has the third, and reportedly the last, film in the series for streaming. The 2019 film has Toothless, the main dragon character in the series, finding what might be his mate, a white female dragon called Light Fury. Meanwhile, Toothless’s rider and friend Hiccup has to find the “Hidden World” where he can finally take the remaining dragons to safety. This movie retains the humor, the heart, and the spectacular visuals of the first two films in this series.


5. Parasite

Parasite Android Phones

The 2019 winner of  the Academy Award for Best Picture is now available to stream on Hulu. It’s one of the more controversial winners of the Best Picture Oscar, mainly because it’s the first foreign-language movie to receive this honor. South Korean director Bong Joon-ho also won the Best Director Oscar for this movie, along with Best Screenplay, with co-writer Han Jin-won. The movie takes a unique look at the divide between certain people, as a poor family tries to enter the lives of a rich family. It’s definitely one of the best movies on Hulu.


6. Shirley

Here’s a recent and intelligent drama movie from 2020. It stars Elizabeth Moss, who also stars in Hulu’s biggest original TV show The Handmaid’s Tale. In this movie, she plays the real life author Shirley Jackson (The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House). However, the movie Shirley is a fictional account of a young couple and how they come to live with Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman. The couple soon start interacting more with Shirley and her husband, even as Shirley starts to write a new novel based in part on their new live-in house members. Moss is the reason to watch this movie as she gives a terrific performance as Jackson, haunted by both others as well as her own personality.


7. Sorry to Bother You

Screencap from "Sorry to Bother You" - Hulu movies

This 2018 dark comedy comes from rapper Boots Riley, in his excellent debut as a film writer and director. Lakeith Stanfield plays a black man who pays the bills as a telemarketer, who discovered he can be more successful by using his “white voice.” Riley uses his film at first to makes some points about race relations, but later he and the movie goes off in a whole other direction that we won’t reveal here. It’s funny, it’s thought-provoking and thankfully, it’s also entertaining as well. It’s a no-brainer as one of the best movies on Hulu.


8. Mission Impossible: Fallout

mission impossibe fallout

The Mission Impossible spy-action film series (based on the 1960s TV show) has had its ups and downs in terms of quality, but the 2018 release of the sixth MI film may be the best movie yet in this series. Tom Cruise once again plays IMF secret agent Ethan Hunt, who in this mission (which, of course, he accepts) has to retrieve three plutonium cores that he and his team managed to lose. However, as with all of the MI films, there are constant double and triple crosses, plus many other surprises in store for Hunt and his team along the way.

Henry Cavill makes us forget (well, almost) that he was Superman, as he plays a CIA agent sent to monitor Hunt’s team. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie keeps us interested with a variety of action set pieces, including a HALO jump, a chase through Paris and one of the best fights inside a bathroom we have ever seen. Oh, and Cruise actually flies a helicopter for the film’s final sequence. As in, the actor, in real life. It’s certainly one of the best movies on Hulu.


9. The Terminator

the terminator

Credit: Orion

One of the best movies on Hulu is a full-on thrill ride from start to finish. Arnold Schwarzenegger had his true breakout role, playing a cyborg from the future where an evil AI has destroyed nearly all of humanity. However, the human resistance managed to win the final battle, only to discover that the AI sent the Terminator back in time in a last-ditch effort to change history. The Terminator is programmed to kill the mother of the human resistance in 1984 Los Angeles. Will he succeed, or will a lone human warrior, also sent from the future, stop him?


10. Heathers

Screencap from Heathers - Hulu movies

The 1980s were full of teen comedies and dramas that had feel-good endings. Heathers is not one of those films. This 1988 movie from director Daniel Waters was the complete opposite of those films made by John Hughes and others during that decade. Winona Ryder’s Veronica wants to take down an influential group of female students called Heathers. Things get out of control very quickly, thanks in part to the efforts of J.D, the psychotic student with a Jack Nicholson impersonation that’s played perfectly by Christian Slater. This dark satire of high school and teenage life is still relevant even today in the social networking culture, not to mention one of the best movies on Hulu.


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Didn’t find anything you like on this list? No worries, there are plenty of other great shows and movies available to watch on Hulu.



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Apple to Announce Q4 2020 Earnings on October 29

Apple today updated its investor relations page to announce that it will share its earnings results for the fourth fiscal quarter (third calendar quarter) of 2020 on Thursday, October 29.


Fourth quarter earnings calls typically provide some insight into the early sales of new iPhones, but since this year's iPhones have been delayed until October, initial iPhone sales data will not factor into fourth quarter revenue.

Apple will perhaps provide detail on sales of the Apple Watch Series 6 and the new Apple Watch SE, which did launch during the September quarter.

Apple declined to provide guidance for the fourth quarter of 2020 during its third quarter earnings call due to the ongoing global health crisis, which continues to affect Apple's product launch timelines and sales.

Apple in the third quarter brought in $59.7 billion in revenue, marking a record June quarter bolstered by products and services growth and a surge in Mac and ‌iPhone‌ sales due to people working and learning from home.

The quarterly earnings statement will be released at 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. MacRumors will provide coverage of both the earnings release and conference call on October 29.
Tags: earnings, AAPL

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Macs Need T2 Security Chip to Play 4K HDR Netflix in macOS Big Sur

Apple's upcoming macOS Big Sur operating system introduces HDR video support and allows Netflix users to watch content in 4K HDR for the first time. However, it turns out that only Macs with an Apple T2 Security chip are compatible with Ultra HD streaming.


Apple Terminal spotted a recently updated support document on Netflix's Help Center that now includes hardware requirements for viewing 4K HDR content in Safari on macOS Big Sur.

According to the web page, viewing Ultra HD content can only be achieved on a "select 2018 or later Mac computer with an Apple T2 Security chip." In addition to that, every monitor connected to the computer on which Ultra HD is streamed must be a 60Hz 4K capable display with a HDCP 2.2 connection.

It's not clear why Macs need a T2 security chip to play back 4K HDR content, given that Windows machines obviously don't, but it could be that this is Netflix's way of ensuring that viewers aren't trying to stream the high-definition content on older Macs, which could result in less-than-stellar performance.

The following Macs have the Apple T2 Security Chip, and can therefore stream Netflix in Ultra HD on macOS Big Sur:
macOS Big Sur is now up to its ninth public beta, and is likely to officially debut sometime this month.
Related Roundup: macOS 11 Big Sur
Tag: Netflix

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Apple Officially Obsoletes Last iPod Nano Model

As expected, Apple has added the seventh-generation iPod nano to its list of Vintage and Obsolete products, officially designating the last iPod in the iconic nano lineup as "vintage."


The vintage products list features devices that have not been updated for more than five years and less than seven years. After products pass the seven year mark, they are considered obsolete.

Apple debuted a refreshed version of the seventh-generation iPod nano in mid-2015, and that was the final iPod nano that came out. Now that the device is five years old, it is being added to the vintage list.

Apple launched the first iPod nano in September 2005, and over the course of the nano's lifetime, it got several redesigns. The first iPod nano model was similar in design to a standard iPod but with a slimmer, easier to pocket shape.

Fast forward seven years to October 2020 and the seventh-generation iPod nano, which ended up being the final model that was introduced. It had an iPod touch-style multi-touch display and a Home button, but the nano and touch product lines were ultimately so similar that Apple did away with the iPod nano.


Apple refreshed the seventh-generation iPod nano in 2015 to add new colors, but the design remained the same. The iPod nano was discontinued along with the iPod shuffle in mid-2017, leaving the iPod touch as the only iPod Apple sells.

Devices on Apple's vintage list are able to receive hardware service from Apple and Apple service providers, but it is subject to the availability of repair components and where required by law. Obsolete products have no hardware service available with no exceptions.

In addition to the seventh-generation iPod nano, the 5th-generation ‌‌iPod touch‌‌, which was originally released on October 11, 2012, has also been added to the Vintage and Obsolete list.
This article, "Apple Officially Obsoletes Last iPod Nano Model" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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