An older family member of mine lost a lot of money to phone scammers and had trouble using a normal phone every day. Dial is a home screen that shows a few big buttons instead of a wall of icons, and can block calls from anyone who isn't a saved contact.
It's free, open source, works offline, and has no accounts, ads, or tracking. Everything stays on the phone.
Dial replaces the home screen, blocks unknown callers, and reads the SMS inbox and call log. iOS doesn't let apps do these things, so there's no iPhone version.
- One tap to call. People are shown as big cards with a photo and name.
- Block scam callers. Optional. Rejects anyone who isn't a saved contact before the phone rings. Emergency numbers always get through, and blocked calls still show in Recent.
- Messages inbox with an unread count on the home tile.
- Recent and missed calls, with names filled in from your contacts.
- Video calls through WhatsApp.
- Send a photo: pick a person, take or choose a photo, send.
- SOS button you hold to call a trusted contact.
- Clock, weather, and battery on the home screen.
- Settings hidden behind a long press on the clock: add people, choose which tiles show, set the SOS contact.
Needs Node.js 18+ and Android Studio with the Android SDK.
npm install
npm run build # static web build into ./out
npx cap sync android # copy into the Android project
npx cap run android # build and run on a deviceThe APK lands in android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.
npm run dev runs the UI in a browser for quick work on screens, but calling, SMS, and blocking only work on a real Android phone.
To use it, set Dial as the default home app in Android settings.
UI text is in locales/, one JSON per language, with en.json as the source. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
MIT. See LICENSE.