NEW YORK (Reuters) – Vonage Holdings Corp plans to offer discounted international phone calls to iPhone and BlackBerry users, as the Internet telephony company aims to expand beyond the residential market.
Consumers could save more than 50 percent for calls to dozens of countries if they download a free Vonage application to Apple Inc iPhone and Research In Motion BlackBerry devices starting on Monday afternoon, Vonage Chief Executive Marc Lefar said.
“It’s an important first step for us. It moves us from the home platform,” Lefar told Reuters. “Over the long term mobile is absolutely a critical place for Vonage to be competing.”
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by Robb Dunewood on August 2, 2009 · 1 comment
I knew that this wouldn’t be the last that we heard of the Apple ban against Google Voice apps on the iPhone. The Federal Communications Commission has launched an official inquiry as to not only why Apple rejected the official Google Voice app for the iPhone, but why they kicked off every other third party GV app for the iPhone as well.
The FCC sent out letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google, and, to make a long story short, they asked Apple why they did what hey did and if AT&T had anything to do with it. They asked AT&T pretty much the same thing as they asked Apple and they also wanted to know if AT&T get to dictate what applications Apple can put on the iPhone. They asked Google if they knew why Apple rejected Google Voice.
AT&T has already responded publicly and they are pretty much allowing Apple to fall on their own sword.
AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it.
Customers can use any compatible GSM phone on our network, not just the ones we’ve approved and sell. And they also can use apps we don’t approve. We don’t approve iPhone applications.
I am sure that there will be much more to come.
Because of the popularity of the iPhone security concerns with the device are oftenignored if not dismissed all together, especially when compared to the BlackBerry. I’d be willing to bet, however, that IT firms that allow users to access corporate email from their iPhones will listen intently to what researchers Collin Mulliner and Charlie Miller have to say about iPhone security going forward.
You see, these two gentlemen recently took complete control over the iPhone of Elinor Mills, senior technology writer for CNet, with an SMS message at the Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas.
Here’s what happened: While I was talking on the phone to Charlie Miller, his partner, Collin Mulliner, sent me a text message from his phone. One minute I’m talking to Miller and the next minute my phone is dead, and this time it’s not AT&T’s fault. After a few seconds it came back to life, but I was not able to make or receive calls until I rebooted.
My iPhone is not jailbroken and it is running iPhone OS 3.0.
The attack is enabled by a serious memory corruption bug in the way the iPhone handles SMS messages, said Miller, a senior security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators.
Apple was notified about the vulnerability which affects all versions of the iPhone OS about 6 weeks ago, however, no patch has been released to correct the issue as of yet.
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An update, iPhone OS 3.0.1, which address this issue, has been realeased…
When we first heard that Apple was pulling third party Google Voice applications for the AppStore, we didn’t think that the ban would apply to the official Google Voice App created by Google. As it turns out, Apple and AT&T are banning Google Voice period.
A Google representative told this to TechCrunch:
We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users — for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.
To make a long story short, Google Voice gives SMS to users for free, something AT&T, and all the carriers, quite frankly, have been over charging customers for, for years. A lot of iPhone users are questioning why BlackBerry users on AT&T still get to have the Google Voice App for BlackBerry. I am going to go out on a limb and assume that this is because BlackBerry devices require a special type of data plan, BIS or BES, both which generally include unlimited SMS. Seeing how my previous assumption was completely untrue, I have no clue why Apple is anti GV.
I am sure that this is not the last that we will be hearing of this story…
I just read a bit of news that will make a lot of iPhone users unhappy. Apple has decided to pull all third party Google Voice clients, err, ugm, GV Mobile and VoiceCentral from the AppStore. We know that there is an official Google Voice client coming for the iPhone. Clients for Android and BlackBerry devices have already been released. We still, however, aren’t quite sure why Apple would pull third party GV clients regardless of if an official GV client is coming out or not.
[Source]
Pretty much ever since the day that the first iPhone was announced we’ve seen blog posts, news and magazine articles, and television reports questioning whether the BlackBerry would be able to survive once the Apple machine got wheels rolling. I think it is safe to say that Research in Motion and the BlackBerry have fared pretty well and have even exceed expectations.
I, however, want to ask a question from the other side of things. Should Apple be concerned about RIM? With the onslaught of multiple new BlackBerry devices on pretty much every carrier of consequence over a relatively short period of time, I say that Apple should be…
by Robb Dunewood on June 15, 2009 · 1 comment
Although AT&T hasn’t ever really just flat out offered pre-paid phone plans for the iPhone, there have been back door ways to getting pre-paid plans since day one. ( Purposely failing the credit check was my personal favorite ) All that is about to change, however, as it would appear that AT&T is throwing down the gauntlet when it comes to iPhone toting GoPhone users.
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I just read an interesting and possibly controversial comparison of the BlackBerry and iPhone. I am sure that RIM won’t be too pleased with Galen Gruman’s conclusion in the Infoworld BlackBerry vs. iPhone Deathmatch.
