The iPhone is not always known as the poster child of customization regarding it’s core uses. Various base apps, such as email and messaging, are not often outshined when put against other third-party apps that claim to do iOS’s job better than iOS does it. Gmail and Mailbox are heavy contenders for alternative mail apps, and WhatsApp is a fine alternative for the basic Messaging app if the people you regularly talk to have the app as well. Few alternatives for the Phone app exist, but a California company called Humin is looking to change that.
In short, Humin is a replacement app for your iOS’s Phone, Contacts, and Voicemail apps. It combines all three functions into what it claims is a new way of approaching the contacts in their phone. Using usage statistics and contextual information, Humin can decide what it believes your most used contacts are and keep them at the forefront with little setup from you.
Humin takes the standard contacts list and deconstructs it at it’s core. Displaying personal information gathered from various public sources like Facebook and Gmail, it organizes these contacts on their personal relationships with you instead of in an alphabetical order. Humin believes that the old method of organizing your contacts is incredibly outdated and wants us to keep up with the people in these lists the way we think of them. Meet this person at school? Humin wants to know this. Is this person a cousin? Humin will keep them organized as such so when you go to search them, a quick search of “Cousin of…” will quickly pull them up, and anyone related to that search, and allow you to contact them as you need.
Humin’s interactivity is a key feature. The first contacts that the app lists for you are a mixture of those you’ve contacted recently or in a high frequency and, interestingly enough, those that are closest to you at that given time. In fact, Humin has the ability to change that list depending on where you are at that particular moment. Change areas? Humin will update your list to show you who’s close by and possibly remind you that may need to reach out to anyone that you happen to be near. The app learns and is intuitive to your usage and the more it’s used, the closer it’s predictions become.
Humin is a very different way of organizing the people on your phone and can be a bit of a shock to those not prepared for the very different way it approaches those you call. The setup is easy, but extensive, as the app is designed to fully take over the phone function of your device. However, with a small bit of work and continued use, the app shows promise. It proposes to change how you interact with your friends and family. It very well may do that.
While only available on iOS, plans to bring the app to Android are in the works, with the possibility to expand beyond them having high potential.
