These days there are dozens of ways to stay in touch with someone, and I am only speaking of the ways which are provided by your iPhone. Of course, there are good old phone calls, but today we also get to use FaceTime and Skype-like applications which are combining traditional phone calls with internet based ones, and of course there are video and video-conference calls. It seems that Apple is well aware of that and is now trying to ease up communication between your iOS device and your computer by unifying push messages at first. This means that with the next OSX generation called Mavericks, you’ll be able to see push messages and notifications which pop-up on your phone but you’ll see them on your Mac. If this is something that you find interesting, than continue reading this article and you’ll get to see a brand new application which can be used to reroute phone calls from your iPhone to your Mac.
The application we’re going to talk about in this article is called Dialogue, and could be purchased for $7 right from the Mac App Store. This application uses Bluetooth connection to reroute phone calls that you receive on your phone, so you accept or decline it, and you can even take the call right on your Mac and talk via Apple’s EarPods. Now let’s see how this works in practice and if you should really pay $7 for this app.
Once you download and install Dialogue you’ll get to see its small menu bar icon, which means this is one of those small and simple menu bar apps. Before clicking on it make sure that Bluetooth is enabled on your computer and your phone as well. If you click on the icon you will get to see a list of nearby devices and only seconds later you’ll be connected. It’s important to say that you don’t have to use an iPhone for Dialogue to work, since it works with any Bluetooth 2.0 phone. After you have successfully connected for the first time, your phone will reconnect each time you turn on your computer or once you get into Bluetooth range.
This application allows you to answer calls, but you’ll be also able to make calls right from your Mac. After you have connected, you’ll be able to see all your contacts and directly start a call using Dialogue. One additional feature is ability to record calls, and that’s pretty much everything that this app is designed to do.
Even though I could see myself using Dialogue on a daily basis, there are some serious bugs and issues which need to be immediately resolved. The biggest issues is audio quality since it sometimes gets so bad that I simply needed to turn off this app and use my phone instead. Also I would like to see more reliable and faster connection since it sometimes took up to 10 seconds for Dialogue to notify me that there’s someone waiting on the other end of the line. Finally I also need to say that Dialogue won’t pause any audio you might be listening to, so you’ll have to do it manually before taking a call.
