Gammu

Gammu is a powerful piece of software that aims to act as an all-encompassing platform for controlling your phone. Even more, Gammu is actually a C-based command line utility that offers a stable development environment and access to a large variety of phone features.

This said, you should know that Gammu can help you list all your calls, backup your contacts and even retrieve SMS messages, just to name a few.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the utility comes with a set of useful built-in elements such as Gammu SMS Daemon, Gammu library and Python bindings, which make it possible for you to develop your own mobile applications.

What is more, the app can work with contacts, messages, calendars, todos, mobile filesystems, as well as with integrated radios and cameras. Put simply, the following features are supported: call listings, initiation and handling, MMS retrieval, phonebook listing, export and import of vCards, and retrieval of phone and network information.

Since Gammu basically aims to produce a shared API for classes and not for singular phone models, there is no surprise that the basic functions implemented by it should work with the large majority of supported phones. This said, Gammu comes with support for a plethora of mobile devices from many producers, namely Alcatel, Apple, Blackberry, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and many others.

If things seem a bit too complicated, you can always rely on Gammu's impressive documentation found on the developer's website. The provided documentation offers basic information about almost anything ranging from supported phones all the way to their extensive configuration process.

Gammu is a capable command line utility that provides you with a stable and efficient environment for controlling your phone's basic functions.

Due to its nature, it may not be what you would call user-friendly, therefore not really aimed at beginner users, but with a fair bit of patience to study the documentation, anyone should be able to at least get to grips with its basic features.