Shady Contacts is an application that focuses on providing heightened security by protecting the aspects of your device that could be the most sensitive. This application is great for those who use their device for personal or confidential communicating and do not want that information shared. It is also great for those who simply like having as much security as possible, especially when it comes to technology as privacy isn’t exactly popular.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

This application is designed specifically to make your phone more secure when you let your friends borrow it to text or call somebody. It works in a specific way so that specific text messages and call logs are visible to you and only you vis-a-vis password.

Pros

• Hide SMS and call logs for specific contacts
• Hide SMS and call logs from certain applications
• PIN or pattern protection
• Hide application from launcher
• Auto-lock and auto-destroy

Cons

• No manual or guide
• Slightly confusing UI

Discussion

Privacy is a huge topic in today’s technology community due to the fact that as time progresses, the average consumer seems to have less and less of it. In a world where people are posting to social networks throughout the day, it can be difficult to hide information that you don’t want others to see. This is a problem especially apparent if you let a friend borrow your phone to make a call or send a text. Unless you navigate the menus for him or her, then the friend will undoubtedly see some of your call logs or text massages while trying to do his or her own business. This isn’t their fault it is just the way our devices work. Shady Contacts aims to solve this problem.

The application will allow you to hide certain call logs and SMS messages from certain contacts. This means that people who just pick up your phone and start playing with it will have absolutely no idea that you have been communicating with these people. In addition, the application will also shield this information from other applications you have installed. This is important because there are quite a bit of applications out there that access this information as a part of their functionality. You and only you will be able to access this information by using a standard PIN password. Another cleaver feature is that you can choose to hide the actual application from your launcher. This means that most people won”t even realize that you have it installed in the first place. You can also set the application to auto-lock or automatically destroy your information if there are too many failed attempts at unlocking.

The only major downside of this application is that the user interface can be incredibly confusing at times. It is not a big deal, but it just seems like basic functions should be easier to accomplish. This is a result of a lack of manual or any type of instructions included within the application. The developer needs to either alter the user interface a bit, or provide easy to follow documentation on how to set the application up properly.

Conclusion and download link

Overall, the application works as advertised which is always a good thing. However, the interface could absolutely use some cleaning up, especially since it is offering a service that not every Android user will need. As a result, the application will not be extremely popular to begin with. The application is actually in its very early stages so there is no cause for concern yet.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 0.91

Requires: Android 2.0.1 and up

Download size: 1mb

Shady Contacts on Play Store