Tag Archives | VoIP

It's Skype vs. Fring in VoIP War of the Words

Posted by Jared Newman on July 12, 2010 at 3:24 pm

Looks like Fring made too many waves by updating its iPhone app to support two-way video chat. After a short time when iPhone 4 owners could use Fring to video chat with desktop PCs using Skype, Fring pulled all Skype support, at first temporarily, but now for good.

Both sides of this relationship gone sour tell different stories. Fring says it was blocked by Skype in an “anti-competitive ambush.” Skype says that’s not true, but claims Fring violated terms of use for its API, and was damaging the Skype brand by temporarily pulling support. No matter who’s telling the truth, iPhone 4 owners can’t make video calls to PCs anymore.

As long as Skype and Fring are slinging mud at each other, let’s look at some other iPhone-to-PC video calling scenarios that would render this break-up obsolete:

It’s possible that other platforms will adopt Apple’s Facetime, which is an open standard. Facetime desktop software seems like a no-brainer, but it needs to allow PC-to-PC calling or it’ll never get the widespread adoption Skype currently enjoys.

Google Talk is in the opposite position. It’s all over PCs through an optional plug-in for Gmail, iGoogle and Orkut, but lacks two-way video support on phones. Still, adding support could cause more friction with Apple and with Sprint, which uses Qik for video chat on the HTC Evo 4G.

Skype could theoretically support video chat for iPhone 4 some day, but the company has dragged its feet on several iPhone features, including 3G calling, which finally arrived in May, and iOS4 multitasking, which is still missing. The company gave Gizmodo a murky answer on video calling for mobile phones, which read, in part, “We’re betting big on video, and we intend to set the bar on mobile video calling.” Whatever that means.

Then there’s Fring. Like Facetime, Fring desperately needs a desktop application, I’d say even more so than Facetime because the software already supports Android and Symbian video calling as well. The Skype fiasco proves that Fring can’t lean too heavily on third-parties, so if Fring really wants the spotlight — and to swing at Skype — it needs to move onto the one platform Skype has dominated, the PC.

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Getting Started With Google Voice

Posted by Steve Bass on June 24, 2010 at 6:49 am

For the last year or so, Google Voice (formerly called Grand Central, a name I loved) was available only if someone invited you. Yeah, I know; I never did. It’s now open to everyone in the United States (stop whining) and I suggest you look at it.

I’ve hot-linked some of the features I talk about to short YouTube videos that’ll give you more details.

The basics: Google Voice gives you a local number with tons of rich features that becomes the one number you’ll use. You configure Google Voice with all your other phones — smart or dumb cell phones and landlines, at home or work – and, based on who’s calling, have Google Voice route the call directly to voicemail or any of your phones. If you don’t know where you’ll be — say, work, home, or mobile — Google Voice can ring all your numbers; you pick up the one that’s handiest.

Continue Reading →

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A Brief History of the Videophone

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 14, 2010 at 12:58 am

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made a famous phone call to his associate, Mr. Watson. Almost immediately, it occurred to folks that Bell’s gizmo would be even cooler if it had pictures. And for 130 years, people have been fantasizing about videophones, building them, and generally expecting that they’d eventually become pervasive.

Last week, Steve Jobs made a highly-publicized call–using the iPhone 4’s FaceTime video calling feature–to his associate, Apple design honcho Jonathan Ive. Tech historian Benj Edwards took FaceTime’s debut as an excuse to look back at the long, checkered history of the videophone–there have been a lot of attempts to get consumers to buy into the concept. Here’s his slideshow exploration of the subject.

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132 Years of the Videophone: From Futuristic Fantasy to Flops to FaceTime

Posted by Benj Edwards on June 14, 2010 at 12:38 am

Last week, Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4 with FaceTime video calling capabilities brought the videophone back to the forefront of the media’s attention.  Steve Jobs’ keynote made it sound like FaceTime will bring video phone calls to consumers for the first time. But the idea of a two-way communications device that transmits pictures as well as sound is as old as the phone itself.

Economic factors have kept it out of the average consumer’s reach until the last few decades,  and the public has repeatedly greeted the concept–in stand-alone form, at least–with apathy. Still, inventors and dreamers keep coming back to the notion that the videophone is the way of the future.

Let’s take a stroll through videophone history to find out where things went wrong–and right–and how we got to the iPhone 4 and its rivals.

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Line2’s Troubles Persist

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 28, 2010 at 12:40 am

I’m still looking forward to trying Line2 on my iPhone, but the VoIP app’s launch continues to be hobbled by Internet-borne attacks. Earlier today, David Pogue of the New York Times reported that the problem was someone’s auto-signup bot that was registering bogus accounts as fast as it could, but that Line2 parent Toktumi had figured out a workaround. But now that’s out of date: I was able to download the app, but once I’d stepped through the sign-up process on my iPhone, I got this:

The Toktumi blog explains what’s going on: The company has put the app back in the App Store, but is limiting the number of new signups each hour to foil the bot. It doesn’t seem like a long-term solution–especially since you only learn about the signup cap after getting most of the way through registering, and apparently have to start all over again if you want to give it another go.

As Pogue says, it’s a lousy thing to happen to a promising service. Maybe Toktumi’s original stopgap–temporarily ending the month of free trial service and requiring payment of $15 in advance for the first month of service–would be the best way to ensure that people who really want Line2 can get it and nobody’s time is wasted.

[UPDATE: As of early Sunday morning, the app is available on the iTunes App Store, but if you step through the signup process you eventually get a message that new memberships are on hold, and that you’ll get an e-mail when they’re available again.)

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Line2 Goes Down

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 26, 2010 at 12:02 am

Weird: Line 2, which I wrote enthusiastically about earlier today, is now suffering a denial-of-service attack (chronicled on parent company Toktumi’s Twitter feed). The app is currently missing from the iPhone App Store, which gave me a scare: There are multiple other examples of programs you’d think Apple might have a problem with hitting the store, attracting attention, and then getting yanked by Apple. (Here’s one.) But Toktumi founder Peter Sisson told me that the company pulled the app itself so that new users wouldn’t start off with a bad experience during the attack.

As I write this, the attack has been going on for at least six hours. I’m still looking forward to trying Line2 once it’s back.

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Line2: A Fresh, Flexible Take on iPhone VoIP

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 25, 2010 at 2:45 pm

As I mentioned in my story on Skype’s new version for Android and BlackBerry handsets on Verizon, I have this dream of using Google Voice or a Google Voice-like service to make calls on a smartphone over the data connection, thereby avoiding using up my precious supply of voice minutes. It turns out that Skype Mobile can’t help. But Line2, a new iPhone VoIP service from Toktumi, might be just what I’ve been looking for.

David Pogue reviews Line2 for the New York Times today, and he mostly likes it; I got a demo from Toktumi founder Peter Sisson yesterday at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas. The service gives you a phone number that you can use via your AT&T line, over 3G data , or Wi-Fi. If you use the latter two options, you don’t use up your voice minutes. And it seems to do a remarkably good job of dealing with the fact that third-party apps can’t run in the background on the iPhone. (If Line2 isn’t running when someone calls you, you’ll get the call anyhow–it just comes in via your standard AT&T number.)

Unlike Google Voice or Skype, Line2 isn’t free–but the $15 a month sounds reasonable, and might pay for itself if you can downsize your AT&T plan to a level of service with fewer voice minutes. Sisson told me that Toktumi is working on an Android version of the app, which will make Line2’s benefits available on carriers other than AT&T.

As Pogue says, Line2 looks and feels very much like the iPhone’s standard phone dialer, only with more features; maybe you have a theory as to why Apple thought that the Google Voice app would “confuse” iPhone owners but is okay with Line2.

I’m signing up for a trial account and will let you know what I think…

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