There are two things I always tell New iPhone owners. The first one is to lock your iPhone (or iPod touch) with a 4 digit PIN. This way if your iPhone is ever lost or stolen no one can just pick it up and go town with all your information. The second thing I tell people is to create a custom wallpaper image that displays not only your favorite picture, but also some information about you and emergency contact info. While this could be done on your computer in an app like Photoshop, there's actually an app for that and it's FREE!
Close Call – Just get it!
There are apps out there that let you log in all of your emergency contact info and allergies, but these apps don't you much good if you're lying there unconscious and your iPhone is locked. Close Call is a free app for the iPhone/iPod touch that let's create a custom wallpaper image with an emergency phone number and up to 35 characters of text that you can use for things like your name, allergies, medicines that you are on, etc. This info is perfectly positioned on the image of your choice from your library so that it displays even if your iPhone/iPod touch is locked!
Once you set up your custom wallpaper, Close Call will save it to your Camera Roll so that you can make it your default Wallpaper.
The only thing I would ask for is to have an option for a second line of text. It's kinda hard to fit your name and potential allergies/medicines in only 35 characters. However, the app works and you can put in the most important info. It's also nice that you can choose the emergency contact number from an existing contact.
Close Call
Close Call allows you to create a custom wallpaper using your own images but superimposing "in case of emergency" contact info (ICE) on it that will display even if your iPhone/iPod touch is locked.
- Polka Networks
- Get on App Store
- Free
All info was collected on 20th January, 2010 when the app was reviewed.
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
That's an iPhone app EVERYONE should use. I currently use an ICE (in case of emergency) screen as my wallpaper, and created it with Photoshop as you mentioned. I like that this app makes it simple for anyone to create an ICE wallpaper.
Great advice Terry. I'd recommend it to everyone. I'm downloading it now.
Tried it and like it. It would be great if the first text "In case of emergency…" could be edited as well. For one thing to make it more international, working with different languages and secondly, I would like to have a slightly different wording.
My wife and I downloaded it and had screens done in a matter of minutes. We also implemented 4-digit PINs. Thanks for pointing out this gem of an application.
I just realized something frustrating for using this app, although not its fault. I have a Mophie Juice Pack Air installed on my iPhone to give me pretty much double the battery life and I LOVE it. I like having the Mophie switch in the position that constantly feeds power to the iPhone battery, so the Mophie power drains first. That way the case is occasionally warm rather than having to feed a totally dead phone where it can get much warmer. However, in that position, the wallpaper doesn't show on the "slide to unlock" screen. Instead it shows the fully charged green battery. It does show the wallpaper when unlocked, but the emergency number/medical info has the PIN entry keyboard overlying the text and it is barely legible. I guess I'll just switch to draining the iPhone first. Maybe that will be better for the battery anyway.
Great idea! However, it seems to no longer be available. Can you suggest any substitutes?
Thanks for your writing, I’ve been enjoying your tips, common sense and humor ever since I stumbled upon your blog.