There are many reasons why you might want a temporary number, including selling something online and not wanting to use your real number, through to online dating websites where again you do not wish to give out too much information to somebody you don’t yet know or trust. One of the more popular applications designed to provide Android (and iOS) devices with additional, temporary, North American numbers is Burner. The developer release a major upgrade earlier this week, giving a number of new options and features for users plus a new, upgraded interface and a Premium version of the application. Burners’ core improvements revolve around a mix of security, privacy and core functionality, and also providing support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
The privacy and security features arguably take centre stage as now users are able to block calls and texts from any individual number, which means it’s now much easier to avoid being annoyed or harassed without changing your number. Another feature is the ability to toggle the sending of Caller ID information. This feature is available in the upgraded Android application immediately and is certainly a welcome improvement: although the concept of a disposable number means that it is more okay to be harassed on one particular number, it is better to elect when to dispose of a temporary number rather than a malicious caller or texter forcing our hand! The new Premium Subscriptions features allows customers to renew a number, or numbers, on a recurring basis and makes life much easier.
The other new feature is Burner Connections, which is all about better integrating the temporary or secondary ‘phone number to a number of third party applications. With this new function, users can now automatically save voicemails and photographs into a Dropbox account, create an auto-response from Evernote notes, reply to text messages and voice notes to a team Slack channel, and share voicemail messages into Soundcloud. Burner wrote this about the new Connections feature: “Burner users have been using Connections for all kinds of things, from promoting their music to running their startups.” The Connections side of Burner shows significant potential for expansion as the developers add more and more applications, especially for small businesses. Check out the YouTube video below for more information, and have a browse through the gallery of screen shots of the new application.
