iPhone Calling and Texting Links
This is the calling one (probably more useful if the clickable text is words, as the iPhone auto-detects phone numbers and does this automatically):
<a href="tel:1-408-555-5555">1-408-555-5555</a>This is the SMS one, which overrides the default calling behavior:
<a href="sms:1-408-555-1212">New SMS Message</a>Not sure what other things these links might work on... Might be a little dangerous as having non-standard links that don't work or bring up errors is kinda bad UX. Best for mobile-only sites. If someone know if this works on Android/Blackberry/Other Mobile, comment below.
I think using “callto:” instead of “tel:” is more useful – these work with Skype on the desktop too.
skype automatically finds telephone numbers anyway, just as the iphone does… I think specifying a link via href would really only be useful for the sms option, or if you wanted to use some other text instead of the phone number:
Should be combined with some device detection script, which would keep us from non-standard link on unsupported devicec.
will this work with android too.
if you hold-click on a phone number, android will bring up a dialing menu. I think you need a dedicated app to actually make the call, however, at least when I tried it on a 2.2 tablet
Yes i can verify it works on android with one exception it doesn’t auto call you have to hit call yourself…so all it does is bring the number up when trying to call but texting opens a new message.
hey team,
stumbling back onto this thread, email signatures in mind.
means by which we might optimize a phone number to play ball with a wide-range of devices/interfaces/clients when clicking from an email signature (mac mail in this case)?
e.g. i’m joe recipient in calgary, got an email from a colleague in buenos aires (yep) – skype happens to be my preferred mode of contact right about now.. any means of making it so that i can choose between ‘phone,’ ‘text,’ ‘skype,’ when i click the telephone number on my phone or desktop?
sure would be awesome – but too idealistic a query?
Reference IETF Standard RFC3966 [ http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3966 ]. I have verified that this works on most mobile units… Click (tap) the link, and you’re taken directly to the dialer with the phone number auto-filled. Include *meta name=”format-detection” content=”telephone=no”* in the header to force this format on all devices.
This is new to me, but let me try
Any idea how to make this work when the phone number contains the “number sign” #? I don’t know about other countries, but this is pretty common in Spain for functions such as activating or deactivating services like roaming, etc. I’ve already tried HTML-entifying it as # but phone won’t still get it. They just seem to link to the phone number without the # part…
Yes Enrique, replace the # with two zeros… It works the same on telephones.
rather than
“+ 40 012345678″ you use
“00 40 012345678″
I just used this technique on a mobile site I made for a client. Works beautifully. Thanks!!!
Thank you for this great tip! I just used it on a site and it was so easy-once someone so gracious shows you how! : )
I swear that you get the links if you implement microformat structures as well.
how do u set it up to like not just call one person like how do u make it go to like ur missed calls and contacts and stuff for iphone
Jenna, too… many… likes… like.
Use of “tel” results in a 404 error on desktop mac. “callto” works.
Another source touted as better incorporates use of jQuery, though I have yet to try it out.
http://zekefranco.me/mobile/ios/phone-number-conversion-for-mobile-devices/