When you look up a phone number for a business or restaurant on your smartphone, doing a quick web search or scrolling through a third-party app are likely your best options.
But the new Samsung Galaxy S8 offers a new option: the phone’s native dialer app.
Thanks to a partnership with Seattle-based startup Hiya, the S8 — which debuts April 21 — will feature a new tab atop the dialer page called “Places.”
Hiya, which spun out of Seattle-based Whitepages last year, powers the new feature with its “Hiya Business Profiles” product that launched today. S8 owners can use the “Places” tab to find a local business and make a call without having to switch apps. Hiya is also partnering with third parties like Yelp and Whitepages to provide a more robust business directory.
“Phone calls remain the most effective interaction for businesses and consumers and yet, calling a business is a needlessly cumbersome process,” Hiya VP of Product Mayur Kamat said in a statement. “With Hiya Business Profiles in place, Samsung Galaxy S8 users will never have to leave the dialer to call a business. Simply put, the Samsung phone app is getting smarter.”
“Places” can also recommend businesses to the user based on their location and time of day. Here’s a look at how this works:
The feature will be available to users in 27 countries, including the U.S., where all carriers will support the integration except Verizon.
Hiya has previously partnered with Samsung to pre-install its spam blocking software on the Note 7 and other devices.
Hiya is entirely on mobile — its popular app was previously called Whitepages Caller ID — and has a worldwide footprint in nearly 200 countries with more than 1.5 billion unique numbers in its global database. The company says it scans 3.5 billion calls and texts per month.