Guide

Wezel: Retro Phone

Wezel: Retro Phone is a phone from 1999 on your iPhone. It has a small one-colour screen, a keypad and its own network. You can call and text other people who use the app, and a few numbers that belong to the network. This page explains how it works.

Getting started

• Sign in. Sign in with Apple is the only way in, and there is no password. Your Apple ID gets its own account with its own seven-digit number and 50 free credits.
• Agree. Tick I am 18 or over and accept the Terms. The Sign in with Apple button only works once the box is ticked. A second box, also unticked, lets the AI lines hear you (see Calling). You can leave it unticked.
• Your number is on the first screen, called standby, under the network's name. Give it to the people you want to reach you.
• Two questions from iOS. Once the phone opens, iOS asks whether the app may send notifications and use the microphone. Allow notifications, so a call or a text can reach you while the app is closed. Allow the microphone, so the other end of a call can hear you. Texts work without either.
• The network says hello. Within a minute, three free texts arrive from 121, the network's own number. They cover the keys, numbers to try, and credit. They stay in Messages → Inbox, so you can read them again.

The keys

• The big key under the screen does whatever the word at the bottom of the screen says. On standby it says Menu. Elsewhere it may say Select, Read, Options, Call, Answer or OK.
• C goes back one step. While you type, it deletes the character before the cursor. Hold C to clear what you typed, or to go straight back to standby from anywhere except a call.
• Up and down scroll through lists and pages. On standby, down opens your phone book and up opens the numbers you dialled. While you type, they move the cursor.
• The number keys dial and type. In a menu, a number goes straight to that entry: Menu then 5 is Settings.
• Hold 1 on standby to call your answerphone, 901.
• The power key is the small key on the top edge. Press it once for the list of profiles and Switch off. Hold it to switch the phone off, and hold it again to switch it on.
• The handset turns. Drag anywhere except the keypad to turn the 3D phone. Tap twice to turn its face back to you.

Menus

Press Menu on standby, then use up and down to go round the entries, or press an entry's number. Select opens an entry, and C goes back.

1. Messages: Write message, Inbox, Sent, Picture messages and Templates.
2. Contacts: your phone book. It has Search, Service nos. (the network's numbers), Add name, Erase, Edit, Send b'card (send a contact as a business card) and Assign tone.
3. Call register: Missed calls, Received calls, Dialled numbers, Erase recent call lists, Call duration, Call costs, and Prepaid credit (your balance).
4. Tones: the ringing tone and its volume, the incoming call alert, the Composer (write your own tune in notes), the message alert tone, keypad and warning tones, and the screen saver.
5. Settings: Sign out, About (the privacy policy, the terms, support, this guide, and the notices for the work the app is built on), A.I. lines, Cover (the handset's shell and keys), Language (what the screen says and what the keys type: English, Russian or Polish, or the iPhone's own by default), Blocked nos. and Delete acct.
6. Games: Snake and Mancala.
7. Clock: the alarm clock, and Show or Hide clock for standby.
8. Profiles: General, Silent, Discreet and Loud. Each one has its own tones.

Texting

• To write a text, go to Menu → Messages → Write message. Type it, press Options, then choose Send. Key in the number, or use Search to find a name in your phone book, and press OK.
• Predictive text is on when a text first opens. Press each key once for each letter, and the phone guesses the word. If the guess is wrong, press * for the next match. A word followed by ? is one the phone does not know. Use Spell to teach it the word. Press 0 for a space.
• Without predictive text, press a key several times to step through its letters: 2 three times is C. Pause, or press another key, to move on. To switch predictive text off or on, press # twice quickly, or go to Options → Dictionary.
• The modes show at the top of the screen. Abc capitalises the next letter. abc is lower case, and ABC is capitals. Press # to switch between lower case and capitals. Hold # for 123, which types digits. Hold any number key to type its digit in any mode.
• Symbols. 1 types common punctuation: . , ? ! ' " -. * opens the symbol table, where you choose a symbol and press Use. Options also has Insert smiley and Template.
• How long a text can be. The counter at the top shows the characters left and how many parts the text will go as. One part is 160 characters, and a text can be up to three parts.
• Delivery. As on a 1999 network, a text takes between 15 seconds and 2 minutes to arrive. Now and then one is lost. Sent shows where each text has got to.
• Reading. When a text arrives, standby says so. Press Read, or go to Messages → Inbox. Options on a message offers Reply, Chat, Forward, Edit, Use number, Block number, Report and Erase.
• Picture messages. Messages → Picture messages has ten small pictures. Send one with a line of words.

Calling

• To call, key in the number on standby and press Call. C deletes the last digit, and holding it gives up. While you dial, up or down turns the key into Save, which adds the number to your phone book.
• During a call, the key says Options, with End and Mute. While a call is connecting, the key says End.
• When someone calls you, press Answer, or C to reject the call.
• The register. Call register keeps your missed calls, received calls and dialled numbers. Each entry's Options can call the number, send it a message, save it, block it or erase it.
• People's numbers have seven digits. A number nobody holds answers with the number-unobtainable tone. A phone that is switched off says it cannot be reached.
• The AI lines. The Operator on 100 answers your voice, and the Chatline on 8008 answers texts. Both are answered by AI. A call to 100 needs your permission first. Give it with the box at sign-in, or in Settings → A.I. lines, which shows which companies process what you say and lets you allow or stop the lines at any time. Until you allow them, a call to 100 is refused before it rings and the phone says A.I. lines are off. Messages from these lines carry an AI mark. The Privacy Policy says where your words go.
• This app is not a telephone service. It reaches only other people who use the app, and it cannot call emergency services.

Numbers worth knowing

• 100: the Operator, by voice, answered by AI. You need to allow the AI lines first.
• 8008: the Chatline, by text, answered by AI.
• 123: the speaking clock. Call it to hear the time, with three pips on the minute. It is free.
• 1999: the echo line. Text it anything (words, a business card, a picture message or a tune) and the same message comes back. Use it to try messages on your own.
• 192: Directory Enquiries. Text it a name to get the number listed under that name. People are found only if they ask to be. Text LIST and your name to be listed, UNLIST to leave, or HELP for instructions.
• 901: your answerphone, where you hear your voice messages. Hold 1 on standby to call it. It is free.
• 8863: the tunes line. Text it LIST to see the tunes and their prices in credits.
• *100# then Call: shows your balance. It is free.
• *22*, a seven-digit number, #, then Call: sends that person a free text asking them to call you back. It is meant for when your credit has run out, and you can send five a day.
• *#06#: shows your phone's serial number in the app. It is not your iPhone's IMEI.
• 121: the network's own number, which sends you free texts. You cannot call it or reply to it.

Credit

• Calls and texts cost credit. A new account starts with 50 free credits. If you spent credit in a month, the network adds free credit at the start of the next month (100 credits at present).
• A text costs 1 credit for each 160-character part. A business card costs 1, and a picture message 3.
• A call to a person costs 1 credit a minute, and a call to 100 costs 3 a minute. Billing starts when the call is answered, and every minute or part of one counts. Only the caller pays. Answering is free.
• Free: calls to 123 and 901, the texts from 121, the answers the network's lines text back (except a tune you buy from 8863), *100#, *22* and *#06#.
• Your balance is in Call register → Prepaid credit, and *100# shows it too. It is not on standby. When your credit runs out, 121 tells you in a free text.
• Credit cannot be bought in this version. It has no cash value: see the Terms of Use.

Switching off

• Hold the power key on the top edge for about two seconds, or press it once and choose Switch off.
• While the phone is off, the screen is dark and only the power key works. Anyone who calls hears that you cannot be reached, and texts wait until you switch it on again.
• If the screen is dark and no key does anything, the phone is switched off. Hold the power key to switch it on.

Blocking and reporting

• Block a number from a message (Options → Block number) or from a Call register entry (Options → Block number). A blocked number's calls hear busy, and its texts never reach you. To undo it, go to Settings → Blocked nos. and choose Options → Unblock. The network's own numbers cannot be blocked.
• Report a message: open it, then press Options → Report and OK. The network keeps a copy of the message for us. Reporting a person also blocks them. Messages from the AI lines and from 1999 can be reported too.
• Every report is acted on within 24 hours. To report an abusive call, which leaves nothing to report in the app, write to support@wezel.ai.
• The network refuses texts with abusive words. The phone says Not sent. Offensive words, charges nothing, and keeps the text so you can change it.

Deleting your account

• Go to Settings → Delete acct., the last entry. Select first shows what will be erased. Press OK, then OK again at Delete account?, and sign in with Apple once more to confirm.
• This erases your number, your phone book, tones, settings and every message you sent. Call and credit records and reports are kept, with nothing that identifies you. If you cancel the Apple sign-in, nothing is deleted.
• If you sign in again later with the same Apple ID, you get a new account with a new number.

Troubleshooting

• No sound. Outside a call, the app plays its tones the way games do, so the iPhone's Silent mode mutes them. Turn Silent mode off and turn the volume up. Check that the profile is not Silent (press the power key once to see the profiles), and that Menu → Tones → Ringing volume is not Off. In a call, use the iPhone's volume buttons.
• The other end cannot hear you. The app may not have the microphone. Open the iPhone's Settings app, find Retro Phone, and turn on Microphone. A call still connects without it, but only one way.
• Calls and texts only arrive while the app is open. Open the iPhone's Settings app, find Retro Phone, and turn on Notifications.
• No network bars. The bars show the phone's connection to its network over the internet. If there are none, or the phone says No network, check Wi-Fi or mobile data. Also check that Retro Phone may use mobile data, in the iPhone's Settings app under Mobile Data (Cellular in some countries).
• "No credit left". Your balance is used up. Use *22* to ask someone to call you, and wait for the free credit at the start of the month if you spent credit this month.
• A call to 100 says "A.I. lines are off". Allow them in Settings → A.I. lines.
• The keys type numbers instead of letters, or words you did not mean. Hold # to leave 123 mode, or press # twice quickly to switch predictive text off.
• Still stuck? Write to us:

support@wezel.ai

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