iPhone: Insert dialing pause into contact phone numbers

Contributor Icon Contributed by qmchenry  
Tag Icon Tagged: Apple iPhone  

When I frequently make calls to automated systems that require an additional digit or extension to be dialed, I like to add these dialing key presses into my contact’s number with dialing pauses as appropriate. The iPhone makes it easy to put pauses into a contact’s phone number.


When editing a contact’s phone number and you are ready to insert a pause, tap the + * # key at the lower left of the screen as shown with a red asterisk in the image below:

After you tap this key, the keyboard layout will change to this:

To insert a pause, simply tap the Pause key. After you tap this key, the keyboard will revert to the normal layout. If you didn’t mean to insert a pause (or pound or asterisk), tap the same lower left key (which now will show 1 2 3 to return to the numeric keyboard.

The phone number displayed on the screen will show a comma where a pause has been inserted. For longer delays you can insert more pauses.

 

27 Comments -


  1. Not working said on December 20, 2008

    For some reason I’m not able to get this to work. I’m able to insert the pauses as you state but I don’t seem to get a consistent result. It seem like it varies the pause length sometime and other times it doesn’t do the pause at all.

  2. Mahesh said on January 2, 2009

    Thanks for the post. It’s saving me a lot of time!

  3. Dave said on February 10, 2009

    thanks , helped a bunch

  4. Manu said on December 28, 2009

    Thanks for the post. It was really helpful and worked perfectly !!

  5. Anonymous said on January 1, 2010

    THANK YOU!

  6. Anonymous said on April 22, 2010

    dialing pause works ok, but what about dialing wait?, for those who doesn’t know the difference in between pause and wait is, after a pause period the handset dials itself the next numbers, however after the wait the user is asked to press a key to send the next numbers.

  7. Ajx2000 said on June 11, 2010

    The pause dialing for the iPhone is slow and often rejected before it has a chance to finish. Instead of sounding like it is being tapped, the dial tone sounds like it is being held down for an extra few moments. By the time it’s released, the pause has already been rejected. Any suggestions?

  8. SS said on June 15, 2010

    works on contacts, but how can I make it work on the calendar?

  9. Mike said on July 14, 2010

    This has made my life just that much easier, thanks. Is there any way you can make it work on the call forward feature? I use call forward on my iPhone to receive all my calls through my office phone which you have to enter my extension to reach me. I want it to be able to dial the office line & my extension to make it easier for the people calling. Any suggestions?

  10. Colossians 3:23-25 said on July 30, 2010

    Now THIS is useful. There are so many times when I am in the car trying to dial-in to a conference call. Even with a headset on, I still have to dial the meeting ID or if I am the facilitator, the meeting ID and host code. Now, I don’t have to run anyone off the road trying to dial these things.

  11. ADM said on August 21, 2010

    what would be better is adding a WAIT like on the BB. Can’t seem to figure it out on the iphone. Anyone know if it can be done?

  12. Ibsamsam said on August 22, 2010

    how do I globally turn off the pause feature?

  13. gw said on August 24, 2010

    Thanks for the post. Saves me a lot of typing.

  14. Bill said on September 25, 2010

    alternate method – insert pause with iPhone by holding down the * and it will change to a comma (,) i.e., pause.

  15. newtonnola said on September 27, 2010

    Yay! Thank you

  16. 84k said on December 3, 2010

    Thanks! It works perfectly!!

  17. Icrap said on December 27, 2010

    my old palm treo did this flawlessly, (so did my nokia & samsung & etc…) this iphone is just crap

  18. Toto said on January 18, 2011

    Works just fine! Prevent me from putting my glasses on!

  19. Vanderlt said on February 7, 2011

    are you able to put the # sign after? I have not been able to make that work like it did on my blackberry.

  20. guest said on February 17, 2011

    Thanks a lot…

  21. Topher Starshine said on April 25, 2011

    “Wait” in addition to “pause” is now supported as of iOS 4.2.

    Pause: comma
    Wait: semicolon

  22. Anonymous said on April 26, 2011

    Thanks!

  23. Avinash said on August 9, 2011

    thank you!

  24. Arasubaskar said on August 20, 2011

    It worked …Thank you :-)

  25. Muriel Laughton said on August 25, 2011

    I cannot find the pause button on my Iphone 4

  26. Daniel said on October 25, 2011

    If you use the “wait” function, the “End” button splits into two buttons, one being “End” and one being “Dial …” with … being the next set of numbers. Using this, you can enter calling card numbers as such:

    1-8005556666;2222222;0841234567

    In the above example, 8005556666 is the calling card dial-in number, 2222222 is the PIN number, and 0841234567 is the international phone number.

  27. Gerald said on November 8, 2011

    This thread has valueable information on the speeddial string.
    I would like to know more about the default length of the pause created. There is no information available on this.
    My customers need the additional dial information to access the IVR system. It worked for a short period but now for some reason they cannot use the speeddial to feed the access codes.
    FYI my customers receive a vcard when they signup and the vcard contains their personal speeddial string. In the vcard I tried using comma, capital P and lowercase p
    Other brands like BB, android, symbian and windows mobile work fine

 

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