“When Steve Jobs first demoed the iPhone in January 2007, he made it clear that reaching someone by typing their phone number onto a keypad was no longer acceptable, albeit tolerated. Instead, he showed an Address Book interface that unifies the concept of a “Person” across all forms of communications on the iPhone, be it iChat, e-Mail, or a Normal Phone Call,” Chris Holland writes for Internet Brands Developer Blog.
“While an ‘Address Book’ seems as trivially simple a concept as it isn’t new to anyone who’s used a mobile phone within the last decade, seeing it executed ‘The Apple Way’ in a larger synchronized ecosystem, helps paint a picture of possibilities that lie ahead,” Holland writes.
“Picture unlimited free calls over WiFi/IP without even having to ‘think about it,’ by simply picking a Person from your Address Book, and hitting ‘call’ …The same way you’d make a Normal Phone Call,” Holland writes.
“When calling somebody, the iPhone could detect whether WiFi connectivity is available, and whether there is a SIP Address for the person i’m looking to call. If both these conditions are met, the iPhone could perform a ‘pure SIP Call’ over the Internet, without ever touching the carrier’s or any phone company’s network. Blam. Free call. An icon might indicate to me that this call is a free, un-metered Voice-over-IP call,” Holland writes.
More in the full article here.
Kinda sucks if your AT&T and selling this thing, all the while cutting your own throat.
Nothing to add, really, except the MDN word is “voice.” Nice.
Now that would be truly kewl.
And then Jobs’ would be assassinated by the cell companies.
Depending how AT & T prices out the plan it could suck for them or be great for them. Service contract fee(s). We’ll see soon.
Why would AT&T care? You’ve signed a two year contract. They still get paid.
“Kinda sucks if your AT&T and selling this thing, all the while cutting your own throat.”
“hy would AT&T care? You’ve signed a two year contract. They still get paid.”
Jay, meet No Squirt For You. No Squirt For You, meet Jay.
I think I’m getting trapped into the same thing we’ve been bitching about for six months here-people making judgements about iPhone without the product or all of the facts on hand-my bad.
I’ve always liked formal introductions!
New AT&T slogan: “Your phone bill delivered.”
I want an iPhone now, daddy!
If ATT can pick up enough switchers from other providers, they might not mind the loss in revenue. And free calls over VoIP would pretty much guarantee that they would. It’s going to happen sooner or later anyway. Might as well do it first while you have an exclusive contract and have everybody else scrambling to catch up.
…then as soon as you drive, walk, commute, crawl out of range of the wi-fi hotspot, boom dropped call. Great concept but not quite ready for primetime I think.
jay: It’s a bit frustrating for me to not know the AT&T plan details with only a few days before launch.
” . . . crawl out of range of the wi-fi hotspot, boom dropped call.”
I just assumed people lived at Starbuck’s.
They never seem to leave.
Maybe that’s what Apple should do in Europe because of the carrier’s cold reception. Just release an iPhone without the cell chip and focus on broadband with Skype.
We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.
“Just release an iPhone without the cell chip and focus on broadband with Skype.”
Nice thought but my guess is that Ballmer is more likely to use an effective anti-perspirant than for that to happen.
Skype is the wrong approach, (for VOIP in general) I know it is extremely popular (so is Windows!) but it is NOT open, and all Skype calls involve their servers.
This whole question of finding an available WiFi connection has not been addressed from a legal standpoint. In some places, just jumping onto any available signal is illegal. Consider the man in Michigan recently being charged with a felony because he used the wifi of a nearby cafe to make a connection without patronizing the store.
He is being hung out to dry in the legal system
Can’t just go around hopping onto any old network and expect there to not be issues.
This is a neat idea – but it will not happen within the next 5 years. Not with Apple’s blessing anyway. This is one of the reasons that they wanted control over the installable applications – because AT&T was so worried about people just using VOIP.
” . . . because he used the wifi of a nearby cafe to make a connection without patronizing the store.”
Which is why I have a trunk full of muffins and receipts.
After the Korean War, my dad was an engineer for what he called the Bell system. One of his favorite things each year were the news reports of saturated networks over holidays when folks had to hope their call would reach a distant relative. He would just smile and say “Keep makin’ those long distance calls”.
Back then, revenue was a measure against network saturation. Today, revenue is subscriber-centric.
Back then, AT&T dominated technologically because of the Bell Labs and Western Electric. Today, Apple is their technological bullet. All the others telecoms rely on the fractured market place in exactly the same way Microsoft relies upon all the PC manufacturers. AT&T has the silver bullet again and they are about to become the most dangerous player in their game.
When Judge Harold Greene broke up AT&T in 1986, they had $80 billion in cash reserves. Put that in perspective to today’s MSFT and AAPL.
This is the move of a lifetime. Jobs has aligned his UNIX OS with the guys who invented it to create the perfect storm business alliance. His chips are all in. IPTV will be next.
As has been said, we don’t know how rate plans will be structured. If it is a flat rate for unlimited access then AT&T might not mind VOIP since it would free-up network resources.
yah, cool idea but not ready for primetime. with the limited availability of WIFI hotspots, limited range and coverage, lack of wifi switching stability (like you have with cell phones being able to move from cell to cell mid-call) and other issues this would have way to many complications to work the way Apple would want it to work.
Right,
iChat is nixed as is VOIP. This article is based on fantasy.
I wish were it true!