Appletell

A German court has issued an injunction banning that country’s iPhone users from downloading a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) called Sipgate onto their iPhones. The program allows users to make phone calls using a wireless internet connection, rather than using a cell phone connection (and paying carrier T-mobile in order to do so).

Their reasoning is interesting:

The core point of the argument was that in order to use Sipgate the iPhoner would have to jailbreak their Apple iPhone handset and thus breach the contract with T-Mobile.

The court apparently agreed with that argument.

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For those of you who couldn’t wait, VoIP is now available on the iPhone.  Coming from an Israeli startup, Fring can be downloaded via Installer.app on any Jailbroken iPhone.  This applications supports a variety of services, such as Skype, MSN Messenger, and AIM, making it perfect to help keep in contact with people.  TechCrunch has a nice video up and points out that due to the high amount of minutes on most phone plans, this app’s real strong point would be for international calls and IM on the go.  As you would expect, the VoIP only works with Wifi due to the amount and speed of data needed.  Right now it is still in beta, but the company points out, “The special pre-release version will enable iPhone users to get an early taste of fring and discover the freedom of being able to take their fring contacts and buddies from their other favorite online communities mobile on their iPhones.“

One part Apple may not like about this is the fact that the app is always on and connected to give the user real time feedback on their contact lists which goes against their no background processes policy.  However, since it comes from Installer.app, there isn’t much Apple can do.  If you have already downloaded this or plan on it, let us know how it is.  We’re interested in what the interface and call quality are like.

Would you use VoIP on you iPhone?

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An awesome VoIP client known as “fring” that was previously only available for PCs and other mobile phones has now been released for Apple’s iPhone (and iPod touch). Of course, only jailbroken iPhones will be able to run the unofficial third-party application, and its VoIP capabilities are only available over a WiFi network.

The developer of fring is labeling it as a “light, sneak preview R&D version” so it appears that they are only testing the functionality and observing the popularity of the application on jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches before the application is officially released once the iPhone 2.0 software update goes public.

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I’ll admit that I rarely use Skype, compared to the other IM services out there - mainly because most of my communicating on the internet is done via text, and most of the people I know use MSN. Skype has some nice features, though. The fact that webcam video chats work from PC to Mac is useful, considering Microsoft Messenger for Mac doesn’t support anything other than plain text, and iChat is for Mac-to-Mac only.

In Skype 2.7, improved video quality on both Mac desktops and laptops has been added, along with a highly requested feature: Contact grouping. With 2.7, you are now able to group friends and family and organize your contacts in a much better way than before. There is also a new feature that’s Mac-only: Address Book integration. It supposedly saves you a lot of time, if you have contacts in the Address Book app. File transfers are also more streamlined and organized than in previous versions of Skype, and you can now automatically re-dial busy numbers.

Via [Skype Blog]

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Hackers never cease to amaze me. While they are a never-ending nuisance for Apple, hackers keep adding functionality to Apple devices such as the iPhone, AppleTV, and iPod Touch that Apple has not implemented (yet). First came the third-party apps. And now, hacker Marian, the guy who built a pre-amped mic for his iPod Touch, has told us that they have ported Samuel’s SvSIP to the iPod Touch. This allows you to use the SIP protocol, and allows you to talk over wifi. Eventually, this will mean that you can make VOIP calls from you iPod Touch or iPhone, as long as you have a mic. Marian writes that they are able to send and receive calls just like a normal phone. Screenshots are promised soon.

12:57:57.091 pjsua_app.c Call 0 state changed to INCOMING
12:57:57.092 pjsua_app.c Incoming call for account 0!
From: “Cxxxxxxx Txxxx” xxxxxxxx@xx.xxx.xx.xx>
To: xxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx>
Press a to answer or h to reject call

You have 1 active call

This is very exciting news for consumers, as technically, you could use your iPhone without the voice plan, and just pay for the data plan which would give you VOIP from anywhere. Also, iPod Touch users will be able to use their devices as wifi phones.

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