Review: i,Call Manager Light for BlackBerry

Call me crazy, but I remember that tag line from somewhere. Oh yes! It use to be attached to an application called Black & Whitelist by i,SoftwareLabs . I reviewed Black & Whitelist way back in the beginning of May and was quite impressed with the application.

Now, I have set my eyes upon iCall Manager Light. Essentially, it offers a similar call management solution as Black& Whitelist, but adds a few more ingredients to the stew.

This time around, iCall Manager Light let's you create custom profiles to manage your calls. Once again i,softwarelabs has given my freedom back, this time, in style.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, close your eyes an imagine this; You are on a date and the night is going splendidly. You gaze into each others eyes, and lean in for your first kiss. Your phone rings - you forgot to set it to vibrate. Your ring tone is embarrassing enough to break the moment. With iCall Manager Light, you could've sent the call directly to voicemail, mute the tune or hang up on the call.

I can hear the hamster wheel turning in your head. Once you finish setting up the second date, have a look at the full review

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

According to i,SoftwareLabs, iCall Manager Light is compatible with Berrys running on OS versions 4.2, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6 and higher. As always, make sure you have set the permission correctly to help iCall Manager Light work for you. It's all about the give and take folks! Though the basic menu idea is the same for both iCall Manger and Black Whitelist, the interface for iCall Manager is much sexier! Have a look at the menu:

the main menu

The upper half displays the profile currently in use. The bottom half is divided between iCall's call log and the preferences section. Let's have a look at each.

Profiles

There are many more options to choose from than Black & Whitelist. iCall Manager Light comes equipped with 8 profiles;

Off Mode - turning off all filters, every incoming call goes through

Do Not Disturb - rejects all incoming calls

Blacklist - rejects numbers found on the Blacklist

Whitelist - only numbers found on the Whitelist will go through

Address book - only numbers from the address book will go through

Address book plus Whitelist - numbers from the address book AND the Whitelist are accepted

Address book minus Blacklist - incoming calls from the address book are allowed. Blacklisted calls are still rejected

Block unknown/private numbers - self explanatory

You have the ability to potentially create an unlimited number of profiles, providing a lot of freedom for you and rule after rule for others. All of the profiles, including the original 8 profiles, can always be edited, renamed and deleted, depending on what you need. There are even different icons you can assign for your profiles. I wonder if they thought about giving us the ability to use our own images?

easily switch between numerous profiles

One of the options you can edit is the way the application handles an unwanted call. There are three ways:

Drop Call - the incoming call will be ended and the caller will hear a busy tone

Mute Tune - your Berry will not vibrate or ring, essentially not disturbing you with who the person is and what they are selling

Hang Up - no need to say goodbye, iCall Manager will just shut them down

every action of a profile can be modified

Call Log

So, now my profiles are set up and ready to for the call to come through, or at least try. Initially, the Call Log section is empty, so I wait for it to fill up. Sigh, I wait, and wait and wait, and there's no love for me. Luckily, I can access the native phone log application from within iCall Manager and manage the numbers there. Highlight a log entry and choose "Send to iCall Manager. By doing this you can add the entry to your Blacklist, Whitelist or Block Private/Unknown. If none of these suit your fancy, you can hit Options and choose to select from all of your Profiles.

address the native call log or address book

iCall Manager's Call Log will only track incoming (Whitelist calls and blocked calls). Seeing how this is an incoming call manger, there's not really any need to log outgoing calls. Besides, the outgoing calls can still be accessed, and managed, through the native call log. Entries in the call log can be viewed or deleted. Highlighting a specific entry will give you the ability to call it directly from the application.

Preferences

The ability to "Send to iCall Manager" can be disabled while accessing your Address Book, Call Log or both. You can also choose to keep the call log until the end of time or 1, 7, 15 and 30 days.

preferences

Though Black & Whitelist is easier to manage, the settings in iCall Manager Light are much more powerful. I had mentioned in my Black & Whitelist review that the odd unwanted call did go through. This issue has yet to come up with iCall Manager. Of course Black & Whitelist has updated from 1.32 to 1.51 since then.

I,SoftwareLabs offer a "Check for Update" feature to make sure you are always working with the newest version. You can also get details on the changes, and what issues were addressed.

Hanging Up

thumbs up from CrackBerry!

Psst... don't tell Black& Whitelist, but I think I prefer iCall Manager Light. It simply adds more features, from custom profiles to rejected call management. Not one call slipped by its watchful eye. No longer will I be distracted by my vibrating BlackBerry, wondering who is interrupting me. Access to your native call log and address book will definitely save you the time of inputting entries manually. I really hope they will let us use our own images for the profile thumbnails. Updates will also be available to you for free. Speaking of free, there is a free trial available. You can pick up iCall Manager Light from the CrackBerry store for $25.00. For a limited time, you can pick up both Black & Whitelist and iCall Manager Light for $25.00.

Pros