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With Android 4.4 KitKat, Google introduced a new Dialer app with Caller ID and integrated Phone directory. Sadly, the Google Dialer is closed source in nature, like many of the other core apps from Google on Android. This goes against Android’s open source nature and makes it tough for custom ROM developers to add it to their ROM.
Being a huge supporter of open source, the developers of OmniROM decided to take things in their own hand. The team has been working on an open-source alternative to Google Dialer that pulls data from OpenStreetMap, instead of Google’s database. The feature is still under development though, so you won’t be able to get your hands on it right away.
Since OpenSteetMap lacks information of small places and shops, the OmniROM team will also provide the option to use Google’s Places API. For the privacy freaks, the dialer will not send your exact location but an approximate one, so that users can results of places nearby them as well. Advance users also have the option of hosting their own OSM server, if they’d like to.
While the feature is not yet available in nightly builds, expect it to be added sometime in the coming weeks.
