Speed dialing was an essential efficiency tool when all numbers had to be dialed by hand. Instead of losing valuable seconds by tapping the same digits every day, you can schedule your favorite contacts to designated points, either on a landline or mobile phone for quick one-button access. Of course, these days, we dial individual numbers much less often. But if you’re looking for a blast in the past, or if you want a way to call your favorites even faster, there are some solutions on your iPhone.
You may already know one of these “speed dialing” alternatives in the form of Favorites: You can assign as many contacts as you like to the Favorites category in the Phone app for speed dialing, video calling, or messaging. You’ll find the option to add a contact to Favorites on that contact’s card or on the Favorites tab itself. While this is a proven and true way to quickly connect with your contacts, it’s not the only way. If you’re looking for traditional, programmable options to bookmark your favorite people right away, you should try this shortcut.
Shortcuts have a speed dial option on your iPhone
Shortcuts has a phone option that allows you to make a call as soon as the shortcut is activated. And it’s easy to do: Open the Shortcuts app, then tap (+) to start creating a new shortcut. Find “Call” in the search bar, then choose one of the contacts the shortcuts suggest you use or tap (+), then tap the “Contacts” field and choose which contact you want to call this shortcut. You can create other shortcuts around this simple action, but for our purposes, this feature is all we need. To wrap things up, tap the icon at the top left to choose an icon for the shortcut (I’m going for the emoji of the phone, personally), as well as the color of the shortcut.
Now is the time to decide where the shortcut should live. If you want it to appear as an icon on the home screen, tap the blue settings icon at the top right, then choose “Add to home screen.” Give it a name, then tap “Add.” From here, you can move the shortcut wherever you want. From this same setup menu, you can also choose to add the shortcut to the sharing sheet. That way, every time you click the sharing option on your iPhone, you’ll be able to call your favorite contacts whenever you want.
You can repeat these steps to add as many of these icons as you want to your home screen, but you can also add a predefined group of these shortcuts to the home screen using the shortcut widget.
Use the shortcut widget to highlight your speed dial contacts
To get started, you’ll want to place speed-dialing shortcuts in your own folder. Open the Shortcuts app, tap Select, and then choose four to eight of your shortcuts to save. Tap “Move,” tap “New folder,” give it a name and an icon, then tap “Add.” Now, go back and tap and hold the home screen, tap (+) at the top left, and then choose Shortcuts from the list. You can decide whether you want to have a widget shortcut, four widgets shortcuts, or eight widgets shortcuts. Add your choice to the home screen, then tap it to choose the folder you set up a few moments ago.
You don’t even need to add it to your iPhone’s home screen. If you prefer the shortcut or shortcuts to be out of the way, you can add them to your view today, the list of accessible widgets by swiping your right finger on the lock screen or home screen. Go to View today, scroll down, tap “Edit”, then tap (+) and choose “Shortcuts”. The process here is the same as on the home screen and gives you a speed dial option in a conveniently hidden location.
How to Add Speed Dial to Your Mac or Apple Watch
You can also add the shortcut to your Apple Watch or Mac, so that your other Apple products also have a speed dial option. If you tap the blue settings icon again, you can select “Show on Apple Watch” to see the shortcut in the Apple Watch Shortcuts app. You can also choose “Fix in the menu bar” and “Use as a quick action” to see the shortcut on your Mac.
[Mashable]