An iPhone App to Sidestep AT&T

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/technology/personaltech/25pogue.html

by fthead9 • 16 years ago

40 36 16 years ago

nytimes.com

stevederico• 16 years ago

Google voice denied and Line2 accepted? Interesting steve...

niravs• 16 years ago

It's quite clear that the Google Voice rejection had nothing to do with app itself.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

Good thing Apple also rejected Google Maps.

rationalbeaver• 16 years ago

Interesting indeed. In my book that smells like the 'unfair trade practices' type of interesting.

jws3• 16 years ago

There was a well publicized policy change between the two events.

khangtoh2• 16 years ago

unfair? what's so unfair about protecting your own turf? or better, pissed off that pesky little competitor.

Groxx• 16 years ago

Interesting, but I highly doubt Steve Jobs personally approves every application. I find it strange that people keep quoting "wtf, Jobs?" and similar when he's the guy at the top, and isn't doing the job of every employee who makes a decision.

And I'm one of the crowd who is wondering how long it'll last. It seems designed to be denied / ejected.

stanleydrew7• 16 years ago

Well he does probably determine long-term strategy with respect to competitors like Google, so he can set the tone under which the Google Voice rejection took place. And you never know, he might have been personally involved in a decision like that.

DenisM2• 16 years ago

Oh this will be interesting on the 3G iPad. $30/mo 3G VOIP?

stanleydrew7• 16 years ago

Does the iPad have a microphone?

gojomo• 16 years ago

Yes. From <http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/>:

  Input and output
    * Dock connector port
    * 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack
    * Built-in speaker
    * Microphone
    * Micro SIM card tray (Wi-Fi + 3G model only)

It's likely the headphone jack is even iPhone-compatible (accepts headsets with inline microphones), though the wording above isn't clear.

DannoHung2• 16 years ago

$45

DenisM2• 16 years ago

Huh? http://gizmodo.com/5459770/which-ipad-3g-data-plan-should-yo...

$30

fthead9• 16 years ago

I use it on my iPhone, dropped my unlimited plan to 450 minutes, saves $30/month Toktumi is only $15/month so saves $180/year and now I can actually use my iPhone at home. Very cool app, going to test on my iPod one of these days too.

ekiru• 16 years ago

This is great publicity for Line2, assuming Apple doesn't decide to remove their app from the App Store due to the attention this article will bring to them.

huhtenberg• 16 years ago

Taking bets on how soon this app will be ejected from the AppStore. Especially considering:

The Line2 app is a carbon copy, a visual clone, of the iPhone’s own phone software.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

To read the article, you'd think VoIP was a completely new, unheard of technology.

albertsun• 16 years ago

VoIP on your phone pretty much is.

jkincaid2• 16 years ago

For those of you wondering if Apple is going to remove this from the App Store: they almost certainly won't.

Line2 was first submitted to the App Store in August 2009, which was really bad timing because it was in the middle of the Apple/Google Voice storm. A month later it was approved (after the founder pestered Apple a lot). And I'm pretty sure the version Pogue is reviewing was actually released last month (http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/line2-google-voice/).

In other words, none of this is news to Apple, though it's clearly hypocritical on their part. Also, no way Apple would pull this after a Pogue review — he'd probably write about it, and he's proven before with his 'Take Back The Beep' campaign that he can incite quite an uproar.

stanleydrew7• 16 years ago

I'm happy that iPhone owners now have something even better than Google Voice. But how can Apple possibly defend the Google Voice rejection now? I hope the FCC gets involved again. I'm offended on Google's behalf.

khangtoh2• 16 years ago

Damn Line2 does exists, for one moment while reading the article, I thought the author was joking and talking about that imaginary VoIP app of everyone's dream. Then I searched in iTunes and it's a reality.

gcv• 16 years ago

How is this substantively different from the Skype iPhone application, with an in-bound phone number? The major usability barrier to me there is the inability to have Skype run in the background on the phone (reasonably so, since it would kill battery life); does Line2 somehow work around this?

Edit: Never mind, I should have finished reading the article before posting. Line2 routes calls through the cellular network when the app isn't running.

justinchen• 16 years ago

link to the app in itunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/line2-2-lines-1-iphone/id3191...

An iPhone App to Sidestep AT&T

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