Windows Mobile Professional: Smartdial

Here's another new thing in WM6 that I am particularly fond of - smart dial for WM Professional (Pocket PC).  Sure, this is old hat to WM Standard (Smartphone) users, but I like the touch experience and am thrilled to have access to this feature now on my WM Professional.  For those of you who aren't already familiar with I'll talk a bit about it.

You see smart dial when you enter the dialer - by pressing talk, by choosing phone from the start menu, and with this feature also by typing from the home screen.  The idea is that when you are in the dialer you can see a list of calls and contacts and you can filter that list by typing or pressing keys on the on screen keypad.  Use the keypad to type out the name of a friend and their contact will show up at the top of the list as all the other calls and contacts are filtered out.  You can keep typing until they are at the very top of the list or type until you see them and scroll down.  Personally I'm not a big fan of scrolling so I use this to quickly find and talk to people in my contact list.

This is actually the same sort of functionality you get when you type in the contacts application, although it has call history and speed dial integrated in as well.  And, if filter down to find that you didn't actually have a contact for a person after all you can direct dial their number immediately.