Ask HN: Real time phone number look-up on mobile phones | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Real time phone number look-up on mobile phones

6 pointspalidanx6 comments

I randomly at times get calls from recruiters or unknown people during the day. When I get a call and I am at my computer I do a quick google search to see if I can find who the company is quickly.

Does anyone know if a service exists where when we get an unknown call not on our contact list the phone can do a web look-up on who the call is and attempt to show it before we answer? I realize the query and response would have to be super fast.

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iOS doesn't give developers access to the callerID of incoming calls. you'd need to do a cut/paste (at best) and probably have to type in the number by hand. it would be made more complex by the fact that at least some carriers like Verizon don't give you web and phone access over the network at the same time.

on android, apps can see the number. There have been various apps that offer a lookup service and spam filter, most notably Mr. Number, which recently discontinued the service amid some controversy and also was acquired. you could also check out Whoscall, which claims to do something similar but has a weak implementation on iOS.

Or you could of course use Burner....

Interesting.. would it be possible to somehow put a 'listener' on Google Voice where when a call was received on that number, a quick look-up could happen then a separate mobile notification could be delivered on a separate app? That assumes that Google Voice even has an API listener for incoming calls (which I'm assuming it does not).

well they obviously have a server-side listener with a lookup/execute routine, as they have whitelist, blacklist, and other conditional features, but i don't believe it's available as an API.

I use http://www.truecaller.com. Works well on Android. I especially like the block feature.

http://800notes.com/ and http://whocallsme.com/ someone should build an app :D

I caved in and started using truecaller after I started getting too many unwanted calls, even though a lot of people say there are privacy issues with using the app.

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