We’ve all been there before. That awkward situation when you desperately need a legitimate reason to excuse yourself, but there is none. You take your phone out, intensely praying that there’s a message from a friend, an email from the store you no longer shop from, a random call from an unimportant person…but that expensive smartphone of yours remain silent and unobtrusive. What if there was a smartphone feature that could get you out of this situation gracefully?
Gionee’s latest smartphone, the Elife S7, was officially unveiled yesterday. Touted as the “world’s slimmest dual-SIM and five modes smartphone”, the Elife S7 runs on the company’s custom ROM called AmigoOS, which has a built-in feature that could potentially save you from being stuck in the most awkward of social situations.
Casually whip up your phone, and swipe up from the bottom of the screen to launch the quick settings toggle.
AmigoOS has a quick settings toggle which is activated by a swipe up the bottom of the screen. There, near the very bottom is a button called “FakeCall”. Think of it as your emergency rescue button: tapping on it will start a 15-second countdown timer, at which then the phone will ring – the caller ID will be set as “Unknown”, so you have to answer; who could it be? To make it even more real, you can even answer this call – though thankfully there isn’t some creepy voice saying “hello” in return.
Tapping on the FakeCall button will trigger a 15-second countdown to freedom. Time to act cool.
Oh hey! A conveniently-timed call from an unknown number!
Stay in pretend conversation mode for as long as you need. Nobody will know.
In all seriousness, this can be a surprisingly useful feature to have at your disposal. The discreet summoning of a phone call could be used to gracefully exit almost any situation: a botched blind date, a boring meeting that’s going nowhere, that family gathering that you absolutely dread going to. Forget extreme power saving modes, *this* is what we consumers need in our smartphones.
