Whitepages Caller ID App

The name Whitepages, might not be familiar to anyone born after 1995, but the Whitepages was the paper-bound book directory sent to homes for the listing of all residential numbers in your town or city. While we may all still be familiar with The Yellow Pages, which was for businesses, the Whitepages had been the other staple in homes for decades prior to caller-id and mobile phones. 

Ever since cellphones gave us the ability to index our lists phone numbers, we've all but forgotten them.  We use the contact name rather than the number for contact, just as we use domain names on the internet rather than remembering the IP addresses. Recently however, spoofing the Caller ID has become rampant, there are actual apps that allow a person to make a call and fool the system. 

Since the Caller ID Spoofing trend hit the market, many people have begun to get calls from companies that are using caller ID's that are not their own.  These companies do not appear to care about which name or number they slander, as long as their message gets out.  And so many people now get false calls from names and numbers that they would never have had contact prior. 

 Thankfully, Whitepages Caller ID app can help to block both spoofers and spam

A Social App

Whitepages Caller ID works on a principle of social networking.  It is useful to know how everyone is reacting to calls and who better to help our than your friends. Both you and your friends can help the app by reporting spam and spoofed numbers to the app.  That way Whitepages can help everyone else be aware of which numbers to block.

The main screen that you will see shows your friends, the total spam phone numbers that you have reported and the total phone numbers that you have blocked.

Nearly every icon or symbol on this screen leads to another action.  You can add personal info by tapping the icon with your initials.  The Green "Friends" icon will take you to a screen for inviting more people.  The Orange Spam triangle will present all the callers that were either already marked by the app as spam or by you.  And the Red Circle crossed leads to those numbers that are blocked.  It is likely that many of the numbers is the spam list will be in the blocked list.  But the blocked lists is mostly up to you to be active with.

On the bottom, the buttons is a list of the last 5 or so people who either you contacted, or contacted you.  The Green dial pad in the lower right-hand corner is merely a link out to your dialing app.

The makers of the Whitepages Caller ID app, are quite serious about getting you to invite your friends. It only really takes 3 invites at a minimum to get the full blocking feature.  But once you friends see the features of this app, they may actually be grateful for the recommendation.



Call Stats

The app doesn't stop there however, it continues on down to offer stats on the calling of your phone.  Once you begin start making calls after having installed the app, it will begin to offer call frequency info. When you scroll to the very bottom, you will see a donut chart that shows the breakdown of how you call.  Although you may already be quite aware of who you call and how often, it's nice to get a feeling what's really going on.

In the section labeled "Frequent Callers" you'll see images of the phone numbers that you've called the most.  Each of these icons will lead to yet another page of info about calls to that number.  It gives a more in-depth display of how you call that number.   If that caller is in your address book already, then you should see their contact info as well as another chart showing incoming versus outgoing calls to that number.

Whereas your current calling app (whatever the default), normally this level of information is not shown.  You usually only get a list of recent callers, no stats.  It is apparent that Whitepages Caller ID app has groomed itself to be the replacement for your current caller app.

If you use the default built-in text messaging app, then you will likely see the text message info in the stats page for each phone number.  But Apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Google Hangouts will not display your text messages data through Whitepages Caller ID app.


Take Back Control

Something that we all deal with, unwanted calls, is the very thing that the Whitepages Caller ID app does well.  Whether on mobile phones or land lines, unwanted calls are a hassle, and at least with landline phones, there is no way to block a call (leaving the phone off the hook is not a solution).  Mobile carriers can block phone numbers on request, but it's not so simply as this app.

With the Whitepages Caller ID app, you have control.  You decide whether a call is spam, or needs to be blocked.  And once you've joined others in inviting people to the app, you too will get the Auto-block feature.

Auto Block feature

Via the social networking aspect and the copious users of the app, Whitepages Caller ID has been able to concoct a significant list phone numbers that are spammy. If you so choose, you can access this feature by sending an invite to three friends. Although the feature is still available, you will need to continually tell the app that you don't want to spam three of your friends about the app, whenever the features are used.

There are several ways to indicate how you would like for the Auto Block Feature to act, but most of these actions can be changed in the settings.

Settings

Caller ID options

One of the first features that you come upon in the Whitepages Caller ID app, is a small circular caller id avatar.  The avatar will show for all calls until you change its behavior in the settings.  Here is where I've found that it is most useful to change to showing only for callers that you do not have in your contacts.   The avatar will float over whatever application that you have open currently, when the phone is ringing, during the call, and shortly after it has ended.  Unless you don't mind having a small circle showing the caller's image blocking your app, I'd set it to be closed in the settings.

Call  Blocking Options

Whitepages Caller ID is heavy into the notifications.  The app likes to help you know what is going on with your calls and so it will post call alerts and blocked call notifications.  If you find all these notices annoying, you can shut them off in the settings.

General Options

Some of the more basic options are found in this last section.  Personally, I don't like hearing dial pad touch tones when dialing a number, it can be turned off.  If you want a full history of all that you've done, you can keep up to 12 months.  And lastly, if you want to keep track of your account on Whitepages.com, the registration is found in the General Options section.

Conclusion

I've come to rely on the Whitepages Caller ID app, I use it daily.  I've got at least 100 numbers on the block list.  The app works great with just about any smartphone, both Android and iPhones.  Check out your version by clicking on the appropriate link below.

Let me know in the comments what you think about this app.