Phone appears as open app in apps scope but it isn't really an app

[Jono Bacon]

Currently if you have the phone app open, it appears in the currently running apps, whereas I suspect most users don't consider the phone to be an "app", but more a standard piece of system software. Ideally it would be always available on the Launcher for quick access.

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

Agreed. This will change moving forward as the phone app will be split into 3 separate apps - Dialer, Address Book, and Messaging. Perhaps Dialer would be considered more of a built in system app and would not show up in the running apps lens but the others would.

[Ryan Prior (ryanprior)]

On my Blackberry the dialer, address book, and messaging are all listed as running apps. It has never bugged me. I think it is a good behaviour because it is consistent with other "screens" running on my phone. I can switch back to the phone screen using my list of apps the same way I could switch back to any screen.

[Jeremy Tayco (jtayco)]

What if the phone app starts hanging or messing up in some as-of-yet unforeseen way (or any system app for that matter)? How could I "Force Quit" that application if it does not show up in my running app list? Rebooting the phone is not optimal (or even a choice in some cases) and running a command from a laptop isn't an option for the on-the-go user.

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

curious to know what design's opinion is of this. I'm good with leaving it showing as a running app

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

Going to close this here as the design is that the dialer is an app