It seems like it’s been forever since the last time I witnessed an ordinary flip phone in the wild. Today’s vibrant selection of smartphones has all but phased them out. But if there’s one thing I remember from the times they were the mainstream, it was the T9 dialing experience intended for the 3×4 physical dial pads.
Today’s smartphones offer powerful features including a Contacts app that lets you call or message someone with a tap. But if you’re feeling nostalgic and want the T9 dialing experience in your iPhone’s native Phone app, then a new and free jailbreak tweak called EasyDialer14 by iOS developer might be for you.
As depicted in the screenshot examples below, the T9 interface offered by EasyDialer14 lets you use the letters displayed on each individual number key in the Phone app’s 3×4 touch-based dialing interface to find contacts directly from the dialer.
In one of the examples in the screenshots above, we type “27753” to dial Apple’s support line since A is found on the 2 key, P is found on the 7 key, L is found on the 5 key, and E is found on the 3 key. The same logic can be applied to other contacts on your device.
Once installed, EasyDialer14 adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings App where users can configure the tweak to their heart’s content:
Options here include:
- Toggling the Easy Dialer on or off on demand
- Replacing the iPhone’s native dialer with the upgraded T9-friendly interface
- Toggling the voicemail tab
- Enhancing the call history list with augmented information and color coding
- Enabling the ability to choose SIM for calling (for dual-SIM users)
The developer provides a button at the bottom of the preference pane to respring your device on demand. This will be required to save any changes you make.
The redesigned dialer interface not only looks better, but offers more functionality in the same amount of space as the old iPhone dialer. With that in mind, EasyDialer14 is something we can get behind.
Anyone interested in giving EasyDialer14 a try can download the tweak for free from the BigBoss repository via their favorite package manager. The tweak supports jailbroken iPhones running iOS 14, and for those using iOS 13 or earlier, the original EasyDialer tweak is also available.
Do you plan to add a T9 dialing experience to your pwned iPhone? Let us know in the comment section down below.