Replace stock "phone" app?

[kameleon]

Hello all! I have a question that I hope someone has an answer for. My wife and I are looking at getting a few of these Optimus V phones for our kids for their cheap service plans and unlimited data plans. With this we were planning to use something similar to the GrooVe IP app to make/receive calls over our PBX (using sip) or even google voice since calls are free for this year. The only problem is I know that my kids will not remember to go to the groove app to place calls and will just hit the "talk" button and dial a number. Is there a way on this phone that will replace the normal phone app with another one like Groove IP or similar? Basically just changing what app the button opens I guess. I am a long time blackberry user and am new to the android stuff but can probably figure out the basics. If this is only possible with rooting the device I am ok with that also. Thanks in advance for any and all guidance.

 

[watskyhotsky]

how much do your kids talk that 5 hours worth of minutes per month wont be enough?

from what I gather voice calling over data isnt too great sounding and with virgins regular data outages not too reliable.

 

[kameleon]

Considering it is not our biological children but rather our exchange students that change out every year it can vary greatly. We have had some that send/receive 1000's of texts a month but only use 43 minutes of talk (not including the free mobile to mobile on our current AT&T plan but that goes away when going to Virgin Mobile). And yet others have sent/received only a handful of texts and used over 1200 minutes in a month. It can vary greatly. That is why I was looking at getting one solution for them that would not change and be cheap on top of that. A VM $25/month plan with the Optimus V and Groove IP using Google voice would be the best unlimited plan possible. And you still have the 300 minutes to fall back on if your data coverage is not good enough to place a call over it. If this works as well as I hope it does, then once the wife and my contracts are up we may be switching also.

 

[kameleon]

This may be a moot point as after digging a little deeper I see that GrooVe IP has an option to "“Always use GrooVe IP”. Anyone familiar with this and if it works as advertised?

 

[mmarz]

In groove ip and the other voip apps, there is an option to "always use (voip app)" for calls. But this is the the apps inner setting. You need to tell android itself to use that voip app for all calls. When you try to dial the first time through android's built-in dialer, android will ask you if you want to use the Phone app or another app (if you have any other phone apps installed) to complete the call. Check the box that says "make this the default option" and then select your desired voip app. After that initial setup, when you dial using the phone's built-in dialer or contact list, it will automatically use the voip app you selected that first time. Once that app launches, it will be dialing using voip because you told the app to "always use (voip app)". If you ever want to change the default app that is used for dialing, go to settings -> applications -> manage applications -> (voip app) -> Launch by default -> Clear defaults.

If your kids don't change these settings, you'll be fine.

 

[kameleon]

Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. Most excellent community here.