AT&T Supports VoIP on the iPhone

It’s been a long, battle with a lot of finger pointing, but AT&T has officially stated that VoIP over their 3G network will be supported, opening the door to Google Voice, Skype and other apps on the iPhone and other 3G phones. While VoIP applications such as Skype were previously available, they relied exclusively on WiFi connectivity. In a statement issued today, AT&T says they have taken the steps necessary to allow Apple to enable VoIP apps for the iPhone to run on their wireless network.

“iPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets. “Today’s decision was made after evaluating our customers’ expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.”

The finger-pointing reached a head when the Google Voice app for the iPhone was apparently held up indefinitely for review. AT&T has previously stated that approval of the app was solely in the hands of Apple. Apple appears to have been threatened by the Google app replacing much of their own device’s built-in phone functionality, particularly the visual voice mail.

Customers have been clamoring for this for a long time, and at least for, the ball is very clearly in Apple’s court.

Source: Mashable

UPDATED: Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone

Last week, Yahoo! Messenger product manager Sarah Bacon put her foot in her mouth when she complained on the Y! Messenger blog that Apple was taking so long to approve their updated Yahoo! Messenger iPhone app. Somehow she missed the fact that the app has been resubmitted with some changes, resetting the review period. Nevermind that she’s a product manager and should know this. It’s a moot point now that the updated app has been approved and ready to download from the iTunes app store.

Yahoo! Messenger 1..2.2 for the iPhone incorporates several changes based on your feedback:

• Stay available, not idle. Now when you close the Yahoo! Messenger app, you’ll still show as “available” to your Yahoo contacts rather than “idle.”  Since you get push notifications of new chat messages, this is more logical.
• Get a better Buzz. No, not that kind of buzz. They’ve tweaked the Buzz feature with a new notification sound, the ability to turn it on or off, and added vibrating buzz notifcations.
• “Shorter and prettier” notification sound. – Apparently this was a big problem for a lot of people, based on feedback. Go figure.
• Address book integration fixed. Yeah, they broke it in the last version. Now it works properly again, so when you compose a new SMS to someone, you can access numbers in your iPhone address book, and not just your Yahoo contact list.

Resources

• Read more about the update from the Yahoo! Messenger blog
• Join the discussion in our Yahoo Support forum

Trillian for iPhone Screenshots

Cerulean Studios has begun beta testing Trillian for the iPhone, and BigBlueBall has new screenshots.

The closed beta began tonight, and requires the iPhone OS 3.0. I’ve been running this Trillian beta on my year-old iPhone 3G for less than an hour, and I’m already impressed.

Trillian for iPhone allows you to swipe to switch between open chats. Like the Trillian Astra web client which is now in public beta testing, this retains the groups you have already setup for your Trillian account and keeps them in sync.

Of course, it supports push notification so you can appear signed in even after you close the app (it’s configurable) and receive incoming instant messages. If you want to reply, it automatically launches Trillian and restores your chats.

Trillian for iPhone integrates with your iPhone camera, allowing you to take and send photos to your contacts, or to use it to create a new avatar or buddy icon.

Currently, there is no file transfer capability (other than for photos) and emoticons appear as plain text.

Being a beta, it’s still a little buggy. I tried sending a second photo and it crashed on me. Starting it back up I tried again, and it went through just fine.

Cerulean Studios has left the door open to add a few small enhancements before the launch this (apart from fixing any bugs found).

If you’re interested in signing up for the Trillian for iPhone beta, you can learn more here. They currently aren’t accepting any new testers, but that will change as they get closer to launch.

If you already use Trillian and have an iPhone, this could be an IM worth getting… when it becomes available. There is no word yet on when it will be ready for submittal to the iPhone App directory, or what the pricing will be.

Screenshots

Enable iPhone Tethering

Yesterday, Apple officially released the new iPhone OS 3.0 software update, which supports a slew of new features including the long awaited push notification and “catch-up” features such as support for MMS and tethering. Unfortunately, AT&T has said that MMS won’t be available on their network until “later this summer” and that tethering will be available eventually.

However, some bright minds have found a way to enable tethering on your iPhone right now, without jailbreaking. Just point your iPhone browser to http://help.benm.at/help.php and you can download and install a new configuration file for your iPhone and carrier. I tried it, and it worked! I was quickly able to setup a tethered Bluetooth connection on my Windows 7 laptop.

How do you enable tethering?

Once you locate the correct configuration for your carrier, download it directly on your iPhone, then reboot your iPhone. When it starts up, go to Settings > General > Network and you’ll see an option to enable tethering. Once you’ve done that, you can establish a tethered connection with your PC or Mac via either USB or Bluetooth. Surfing the web is actually not bad on 3G.

The same site also has the settings for enabling MMS, but I haven’t been able to find where to enter them.

Note that you enable tethering at your own risk. AT&T and other carriers may charge you for additional usage, if they figure out how.

via CrunchGear

Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone 1.1

It’s been less than one month since the initial launch of Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone, and the Yahoo! Messenger blog reports that an updated version is already available in the iTunes App Store. Yahoo! Messenger 1.1 promises an improved reliability and sign-in experience — a big problem for many early adopters.

The Yahoo! Messenger app remains free, works with both the iPhone and iPod Touch, and now supports the landscape keyboard — a nice touch if you log a lot of hours on IM.

Yahoo also added a “Report a Problem” feature that gives you a direct channel back to Yahoo for problems or even suggestions.

Yahoo product manager Sarah Bacon also thanks everyone for sharing their feedback on the beta version 1.0. 

Here’s some additional feedback: Change the “available” indicator in the contacts list from yellow to green (like every other online indicator on the PLANET!). Please. 

More screenshots below, courtesy of Yahoo:

 

 

 

Yahoo! Messenger Now on iPhone

Last week at CTIA, Yahoo released Yahoo! Mobile and announced Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone. Well, now the popular instant messenger is officially available for download via iTunes.

The new iPhone application is available for free and gives you basic instant messaging capability with a few nice extras. Of course, you can see who is online and chat with your friends. You can also share photos, or view an archive of recent conversations. 

Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone also has a special idle state, so if you answer a phone call you will continue to receive IMs. As long as you return to Yahoo! Messenger within 10 minutes, you can pick up your conversations right where you left off. It’s not quite running in the background, but it’s a nice extra until Apple provides the long promised push notifications sometime this summer. 

  

  

It’s interesting that Yahoo! now has three applications available for the iPhone that all give you the ability to send and receive IMs on the Yahoo! Messenger network: this app, OneConnect and Yahoo! Mobile. They all have a slightly different flavor, but it seems that Yahoo! needs to sort out their iPhone strategy. 

Note that unlike it’s desktop siblings, Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone will let not you chat with your Windows Live Messenger (formerlly MSN) contacts. For that, you need a multi-network program like BeeJive, IM+ or Palringo. But if you primarily use Yahoo! Messenger and don’t need to connect to other IM networks, this app should suit you well.

Useful Links

• Download Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone
• BigBlueBall Yahoo! Messenger support forums

Thanks to our forum member Youngistaan for the tip!

Yahoo! Mobile Now Available

Yesterday at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas, Yahoo! announced the availability of Yahoo! Mobile supporting over 300 devices, and provided a sneak peek at Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone.

Yahoo! Mobile comes in two basic flavors, an application (available for iPhone, Windows Mobile and a few others) and a web-based mobile version for everyone else. They share a similar look, and do a pretty amazing job of integrating services from a wide range of popular choices. News, email (including Gmail), instant messaging, social networks — they are all available. 

In related news… Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone

Announced yesterday–but not yet available for download–was Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone. This is somewhat curious, as Yahoo! Mobile (including the iPhone version) and Yahoo! oneConnect (which is also available for the iPhone) already support Yahoo! Messenger. So with this “new” product, you now have three ways from Yahoo! to connect to Yahoo! Messenger. And that’s not even considering all the third-party options (Nimbuzz, Beejive, Palringo, etc.). 

Granted, Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone is more full-featured, but the multiple products still leaves me wondering if they have a cohesive plan for all these products. Check out the video demo:

http://www.vimeo.com/3951867

Useful Links and Other Opinions

• Yahoo! Mobile – official site
• Sneak peek: Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone – Yahoo! Messenger Blog
• Yahoo! Mobile for Web Launches Across More Than 300 Devices Around the World – Press Release
• Yahoo Gets It Right: New Mobile Website, iPhone App Launch – Search Engine Land
• Yahoo Takes Mobile, Messenger to iPhone – PC World
• Yahoo Rolls Out iPhone App at CTIA Wireless – eWeek

Skype for iPhone Now on App Store

As rumored last week, Skype for iPhone is now available on the iTunes App Store. The free Skype application works with both the iPhone and the iPod Touch, allowing you to make free or low-cost Skype calls using VoIP and your WiFi connection. That’s right, it won’t work work over 3G or EDGE networks, likely due to business arrangements more than for technical reasons (read: AT&T still wants your dialing dollars).

Skype did a great job of building an app that takes full advantage of the iPhone design–it looks like it just belongs on the iPhone. 

    

Skype for iPhone gives you most, but not all of the core capabilities of it’s desktop sibling:

• Free Skype-to-Skype calls from any Wi-Fi zone to other Skype users worldwide
• Call landline or mobile phones at low rates from any Wi-Fi zone
• Send/receive instant messages to/from individuals or groups via 3G, Wi-Fi, GPRS or EDGE (whichever is available)
• Receive calls to a personal online number on Skype
• See when Skype contacts are online/available to IM or talk

 

  

“Skype software for the iPhone has been the number one request among our users. We are delighted to deliver on this request and put Skype into the pockets of millions of people around the world who are carrying iPhone and iPod touch devices,” said Scott Durchslag, Skype’s Chief Operating Officer. “Skype for iPhone will open up new ways for more than 400 million Skype users to stay connected and take their Skype conversations with them. Skype for iPhone is an experience that offers the same simplicity, ease-of-use and quality our users have come to expect from Skype, combined with an elegance of design and richness so loved by Apple’s many customers worldwide.”

Noticably missing from this Skype app is the ability to run in the background with push notifications — a feature promised in the iPhone OS 3.0 this summer. Until then, this initial version should stave off the competition from Nimbuzz and Truphone.

Useful Links

• Skype Available on Apple App Store – official press release

Skype for iPhone Arrives Next Week

I love a good rumor, especially when it’s about two great products. In this case, the rumor involves the popular VoIP messenger Skype (which has been downloaded over 400 million times) and the iPhone. GigaOM has it on good authority that an official Skype app for the iPhone will be showing up at the iTunes Application Store as early as next week during the CTIA Wireless industry event in Las Vegas.

Readers at Engadget point out that there are already several VoIP solutions for the iPhone (Nimbuzz and Truphone, to name two), but most of these are clumsy to use, at best. Skype products generally have a very polished feel about them, and we will be watching this news closely as the story develops.

Nimbuzz Adds 3G VoIP to iPhone

Nimbuzz today released an update to their VoIP application for the iPhone. The new version adds the ability to make VoIP calls to landlines and mobiels via Skype-Out and Nimbuzz’s major SIP partners, including Gizmo5 and SIPgate. Nimbuzz also works on an iPod Touch via wifi, essentially turning it into a VoIP phone. 

iPhone users can also make VoIP connections without wifi over the 3G network using Nimbuzz Dial-up VoIP. This makes international calls much cheaper, by allowing you to dial a local number, then connecting internationally to over 50 countries. 

Also in this version — Nimbuzz now allows you to post Twitter updates, making it a well-rounded, all-purpose communicator.

Next Page »