iPhone 1.1.3 hack – Speed Dial on your home screen

So the new iPhone 1.1.3 firmware allows you to put icons on your home screen for websites, but I know many of us want to put phone numbers on there for a Speed Dial screen.

I’ve put a little hack together that lets you have a (somewhat) speedy speed dial icon. There’s no jailbreaking required for this one – it can all be done using Apple-approved Web Clip creation.

Check the images below for a walkthrough.

Start by heading to (phone number).tel.QLNK.net on your 1.1.3 iPhone. QLNK.net is owned by me and .tel.qlnk.net hosts a special page that will redirect your iPhone to call the phone number you specify.

Advanced: Set your own speed-dial picture by adding “?picurl=http://path.to/photo” to the end of the URL. You can use QLNK’s URL shortening service to make it easier to type on the phone.

Privacy warning: Due to the nature of this hack, your phone will request this page when you create a speed dial icon on your home screen. I assure you I will not use this data AT ALL FOR ANY REASON. It is entirely possible to put a similar script on your own web server, which will do the same thing without sending me any information; that course of action is recommended if you are at all concerned about your privacy.

As of January 25, 2008, the page returns you to a data: URI, which does not contact my server every time you hit the icon – just the first time when you create it. The dialing page is instead stored locally on your phone.

Lee Fernandes has instructions on putting this onto your own server.

You will see a “Call” popup – for now, hit Cancel. Later when you are using the speed dial you will use the “Call” button.

Now hit the “+” button at the middle of the Safari bottom bar.

Hit “Add to Home Screen”.

Enter a name for the speed dial entry, and hit Add.

Congratulations! You have a speed dial icon on your phone. Here I have added Google 411.

When you want to dial, unfortunately, you have to tap twice – once on the icon and then once in Safari to hit Call.

I’m hoping for more native support for icon speed dial later on from Apple.