While most iPhone users are stuck with an iBrick this morning as Apple’ servers can’t complete the last step of the upgrade process, those of us smart enough to take the unofficial upgrade route 24 hours ago are happily trying out new App Store Apps. This morning I turned my iPhone into a VoIP phone by installing the new Truphone iPhone app (Truphone company profile).
One of the iPhone 2.0 restrictions that is unfortunate is the fact that VoIP applications aren’t allowed to use the cell/data connection - all that 3G bandwidth could be put to great use. But VoIP apps are allowed on the phone and can use Wifi when it’s available.
While at first it seems that the fact these apps can’t tap into the 3G stream is a real problem, in fact even the allowed activity, VoIP over Wifi, is extremely useful. For example - AT&T mobile coverage at my house/office is very bad, so I rarely use my iPhone for calls there. Instead I just pick up my landline (which is a Vonage VoIP phone). With VoIP over Wifi I can still use my mobile phone to make calls.
I installed the Truphone app this morning and registered online. Calls to any landline anywhere in the world are just 6 cents per minute, and you get a $4 credit to start when you first download the app. Truphone accesses your contact list to allow for one click calls in the same way as normal calls. The differences you’ll notice v. normal cell calls: you must have a Wifi connection to make calls, you can’t receive calls, if a normal voice call comes in your Truphone call is immediately terminated (this really sucks), you can’t use the speakerphone and your “favorite” numbers aren’t imported.
One really excellent feature is the fact that when you call someone, they see your normal caller id.
The video below shows the call process and I also play a voicemail I left through the app - the sound quality was excellent.
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the siphone project gets you VOIP, using any VOIP-SIP carrier, with inbound calling as well, but not sure when it will be on the app store
Hi,
Anyone know what happened to the Icall app which was featured on here that would allow calls to be transfered over to an VOIP call through WIFI…
http://www.icall.com/iphone/
i expect fring will shortly have something soon as well.
Just to let you know that I am signing off from your web site - have no intention to read more and again about iphone. Could be important for you but iPhoneCrunch is not too interesting for the rest of the world.
Removing rss link rigth now. Thanks and bye.
DP #4 - I really can’t sympathise with you, like it or not the iphone 3g with apps store is one of the biggest tech developments in years (I would say decades but there you go). Please be a bit forgiving, I am sure normal service will resume soon enough.
DP is right - all of this iPhone coverage is very, very annoying. iPhone is cool, but not everyone is going crazy about it like the TechCrunch gang.
Out of the last 16 posts, 10 have been about the iPhone.
I don’t know about you guys, but $0.06 a minute seems a bit steep to me for voip.
Please, please, please either aggregate your hourly iPhone coverage into single newsitems or reduce iPhone coverage alltogether.
I appreciate it’s a great phone and revolutionary etc.pp. but I usually appreciate TechCrunch for other types of news a lot more.
Thanks for listening.
This truphone service seems pretty shotty. I’m not too impressed. The fact that your call gets terminated automatically when another call comes in is absolutely absurd. That’s not a turn-to service. What restrictions are keeping truphone from acting more like a normal call?…. http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
Duh - AT&T - don’t offer unlimited Internet. Allow the net to be free and offer monthly bandwidth plans. You are sure to make up for revenue lost from VOIP technology!
Consumers are used to pay for monthly cellphone planes, so monthly bandwidth plans is not too much of a stretch.
It’s either unlimited access with hobbled Internet or open access Internet with monthly bandwidth plans. Which one would you prefer?
Thanks for letting us know you are leaving DP. We care. Really. We do. But don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out….
@7 no kidding, 6c a minute for voip is very expensive, isn’t Skype available?
Michael Arrington must be a lot richer than I thought … either that or he has completely lost it:
“Calls to any landline anywhere in the world are JUST 6 cents per minute”
6 cents is ABSURDLY high for VOIP - actually it’s high for any type of phone service
snooze, I’ve using fring on my iPhone to do this for months now. Even over edge if u configure correctly
Thought most of us were using Fring (www.fring.com) for VOIP, for a while already?
“…those of us smart enough to take the unofficial upgrade route 24 hours ago…”
I think what you really mean to say is, “Those of us who were too impatient to wait for the official release and risked losing our settings or worse…”
Y’know, just because you decide to hack into an upgrade before it’s ready doesn’t make you smarter than anyone else.
“…those of us smart enough to take the unofficial upgrade route 24 hours ago…”
Ouch… calling us stupid?
I’m definitely kicking myself for not doing this yesterday, because now I’m stuck with a bricked phone.
Is there a free voip service for the iphone?
Is there a free voip service for the iphone?
@Richard, if you were hawking some companies products, you’d also say it was reasonably priced.
I’ve thought for a while that the best way to make true prosperity in the world is to lower the costs of living (rent, utilities, food, medical, etc). This article deals with the utilities side of the equation.
Mobile VOIP technology in combination with mesh wireless networks is going to eventually put the telcoms out of business (good riddance). I’d love to cancel my mobile account and the evil contract that goes along with it.
It sux that apple’s putting these limit’s on users (understandable though in order to keep good relations w/ AT&T), but I’m sure android will help get the world to (almost) free mobile access.
Is there anyway to turn off both 3G and Edge on the iPhone while keeping WiFi turned on? It seems like that might be a way of keeping your VoIP calls from getting terminated.
The iPhone is the most overhyped crap in the tech history.
The people bitching on the comments about iphone stories are awesome. Please keep it up, and continue to disregard the fact that you could have skimmed 50 iphone story titles in your feed reader in the time that it took you to open one of them in your browser, compose a snarky comment, and submit it.
Bye, bye, TC. After more than one year, I just removed your feeds from my readers. Good luck.
I don’t understand why you are surprised that you can’t use VOIP over the 3G or edge networks. Why would any phone carrier allow that? They make money by selling you service on your phone. If you could just use VOIP everyone would just get the smallest minutes plan possible…well maybe on a VOIP app that wasn’t so frieken expensive.
@Tony (comment #21)
I think what you’re talking about for free mobile access is awesome. What would be cool is if there are some Android devices that appear with video chat over VoIP. Then you could have a real Jetson’s type of device — a mobile video phone.
So the device would have an iChat camera lens on the front of the phone pointed at the iPhone holder’s face, and another one on the backside of the phone pointed at what the holder is looking at. Then a button where the holder can hit “switch lenses” to the one on the backside of the phone and could tell your buddy: “Hey check out what I’m looking at right now” and stream it to him. Then hit “switch” again and he’s looking at your face again.
Then make a live connection with your blog & voila —- you have a bunch of bloggers who can become their own live cameraman & commentator when they are an audience-member at the president’s speech or something.
truphone on the iPhone, finally… I am waiting for it. I have used the service extensively on the Nokia E and N Series for about 2 years. It saves you a lot of money and truphone to truphone calls are free of charge. Once your friends are on truphone it gets real Free. So I am not sure what people complain about. Most of my calls these days are on truphone.
I’m starting to think that it is the 3rd party apps that are going to take the iPhone from being merely “popular” to “totally dominant.”
I wonder what happened to iCall…it was previewed on TC just like a month back, and seemed to be a much better option.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....to-iphone/
So how come when Twitter goes down for 10 minutes there is an instant 1,000 word long rant here, but when Apple goes down ( and bricking 200,000 phones in the process ) it’s OK?.
Where are the non stop, super negative new posts ( six a day, day after day ) about how everyone responsible at Apple should be fired ( or better yet the long posts cheering when an employee resigns ) and that Apple is “worthless”?
Enough of these “Frings” and “iCall” and “TruePhone” and other $$$ VoIP shysters! WHY ISN’T THERE a softphone for the iPhone yet? A SIP! How simple is this?? Can somebody please just throw this in the App Store? Please I’ll gladly pay $4.99 for it.
“I don’t understand why you are surprised that you can’t use VOIP over the 3G or edge networks”
You can, fring works on 3G on Symbian.
OK me again, and I’m sorry Mr. Arrington, but I just signed up and this is a total sham. You can’t receive inbound calls! So how in the WORLD is this even considered a ‘tru phone’ if it’s not a TRUE phone? Outbound calls are $$$, and Inbound calls are still billed to my carrier, AT&T. So WHERE am I saving money?
Rating: 0.5 out of 10
The iPhone software platform is getting a lot of press for a reason. Sorry if you don’t like it. iPhone haters do have websites too though. Maybe check out some Microsoft blogs? TechCrunch is a blog, and is subjective. They talk about what they want, and they think people find interesting(I’m sure they have analytics that allow them to gauge this thematically). I don’t read every single post on TC, but I read the ones that interest me. I encourage everyone else to do the same thing.
>>those of us smart enough to take the unofficial upgrade route 24 hours ago are happily trying out new App Store Apps
Well neener-frikkin-neener to you too.
>>So how come when Twitter goes down for 10 minutes there is an instant 1,000 word long rant here, but when Apple goes down
When “twitter goes down” their entire service, their entire business is offline.
For all of Apple to “go down,” every computer, ipod, iphone, and website they’d ever made would have to die at once. And if that happened, I’m pretty sure it’d be noted here.
C’MON ENOUGH ALREADY with articles on the bloody iPhone 2.0!!!
Are the writers at TechCrunch being paid by Apple because the obsessive amount of articles on here relative to Apple’s market share or even their forecast market share is ridiculous!!!!!
My HTC Diamond with HPDSA 3.5G is faster than the new iPhone has better WiFi and GPS, double the screen resolution and has other features which the iPhone doesn’t but what other mobiles have had for the past 14 months.
I can also buy 3rd party applications without being locked into an Apple online store and can buy it unlocked.
So, either give other phones the same coverage or CUT IT OUT ffs!
@ Rajiv Singh
The most overhyped crap in the tech industry is Vista. Don’t forget that Apple-hater!
@ right, its expansive, know somebody free viop?
Packet8 Mobile Talk also brings VoIP to the iPhone. It’s cheaper than Truphone and even works outside of Wifi areas.
Not to forget Fring’s VoIP app for the iPhone which they launched already months ago. It lets you choose your VoIP provider freely and therefore most calls are even free if you choose e. g. Betamax like I do.
Thanks for this Michael. However, I too would like some kind of Skype Wi-Fi app. Do you know if they’re planning on getting into this arena?
Coolnes, Finally something Useful for the Iphone.
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
@22. Anthony you can turn off 3g & edge cell radios on ypur iPhone and turn on wifi by going into settings and turn on airplane mode and turn on wifi.
did I just stumble onto Gizmodo by accident?
all of this iPhone coverage is very annoying
@Hugo
Your mom is also over hyped.
Echoing Wheatie’s comment: version 2.0 now allows you to have wifi on even with the phone in airplane mode. Having the iPhone in this mode will prevent incoming calls from terminating the voip call.
Truphone should make the app auto-switch the wifi/airplane mode settings on launch.
These people “removing their rss feeds” are a laugh. They remind me of Monks, the Amish, and a plethora of other religious zealots who seek to remove themselves from the rest of society lest it offend them.
sorri, this is so 12 months ago. 02 Atom Life with WM6 runs skype/skype out just fine - on wifi OR 3.5G.
Is it worth listening to Americans for advice on 3G matters?