iMessage looks to be Apple’s version of BlackBerry Messenger. It will do standard text messages, but also adds the ability to message any iOS device – iPods and iPads included. Now, if I can send a message from one wifi iPod to another wifi iPod, it can’t be using a telecom’s text message protocol. I wonder if the same is true for iPhone-iPhone messages.

If this is indeed true, it looks like text message revenue is about to go through the floor. Why pay for all those extra text messages when you can get them free with iMessage?

The second interesting bit is that now apps like WhatsApp have to tout their cross-platform nature. WhatsApp is a $0.99 app that is available on multiple platforms and allows sending text-like messages between users of WhatsApp. The messages are of course free, which means it can be a useful app if you send a lot of messages and have friends on the service. Because one of the biggest value propositions of WhatsApp is free messaging, it could be in some trouble now that iMessage seems to be setting itself up for free iOS-iOS messaging.

Now, we didn’t WANT iPhones. At least I didn’t. My first choice would have been a BlackBerry, if the one I wanted existed. 4’3″ screen, no slide out keyboard, with a BlackBerry trackpad. Mini-HDMI and microUSB with at least one camera would have been nice. Basically, I wanted a 4’3″ version of the PlayBook that made phone calls. I’d have bought two of them, no doubt about it.

But such a phone doesn’t exist.

My next choice would have been a 4’3″ android device, such as the HTC DesireHD, HTC Evo, or Motorola DroidX. Can’t get them in Canada. *sigh*. Again, I would have bought two of them outright. I know the DesireHD is probably coming to Canada in 2011 sometime, but I’m not going to suffer with a flip phone for another 6 months on the chance that my second choice MAY be coming.

So that left me with the iPhone 4. 2 of them. 32 GB versions.

Dear RIM and Google: You lost out on 2 top of the line smartphone purchases this month because you don’t have anything I want in Canada. And I can pretty much guarantee you that there are many others in the same boat not only in Canada, but around the world. Here’s what missed opportunity looks like:

Very briefly, Apple’s app approval guidelines were not transparent, were quite arbitrary, and seemed to not be applied consistently. This made many developers frustrated when their apps were rejected from the app store. One of the most relevant apps that I have been following is GV Mobile by Sean Kovacs.

GV Mobile was an app for the iPhone which was a nice front-end to Google Voice. It was approved by Apple, went on sale for a short time (I bought it), and allowed a user to dial phone numbers, listen to voicemails, and access all of Google Voice’s functionality. Unfortunately, at some point it was disapproved of by Apple and was removed from the App store, on the basis that it replicated functionality of the iPhone (namely the dialer).

This was odd as there were many other apps on the App store which had dialers and “replicated functionality” yet were allowed to remain. Speculation was that it was more of an attack on Google Voice than on apps with dialers.

The fallout of this was when users restored their devices, or bought a new one, they could not get access to another copy of GV Mobile, despite having paid for it. This was not the developer’s fault (he subsequently released the app on Cydia, the app store for jailbroken iPhones), and left many users with nothing to show for their money.

Another consequence of this was push notifications never came to GV Mobile, even for those users who never deleted the app. No official app status means no use of Apple’s push notification servers. This means you could get a voicemail or text but not know about it until you manually checked the app.

All of this is now water under the bridge as Sean has gotten confirmation that GV Mobile can be resubmitted to the App store and will likely see it get approved.

Good news: I did get confirmation back from Apple that it will most likely get back in once I resubmit.

With home wifi networks being common, the iPod touch could be used as an iPhoneHome.

When the 1st generation touch came out, it lacked any sort of microphone input, there was no external speaker, skype wasn’t available, and there was no such thing as backgrounding an application. This meant that you couldn’t talk to the other person, and your iPod wouldn’t let you know when someone was calling.

The second generation touch offered a mic-in by way of the headphone jack, came with an external speaker, and skype was available at the time too. There was still no non-jailbroken way to get apps to run in the background, but push notifications came around to let inactive apps know that someone was trying to connect. In my experience the push notifications came way too late, and the other person had already hung up. I could always call them back within a few minutes, but that’s not quite acceptable for every day use.

With the 3rd generation and iOS4, we finally got backgrounding. Your VOIP app could sit in the background and let you know instantly that someone was trying to call, just as a regular phone would. Furthermore, iOS4 allowed the wifi to remain connected, even when the device was asleep, which would ensure that your incoming calls got through.

Now, with the 4th generation iPod touch, we finally have an external mic to go along with the external speaker thanks to facetime. So long as you have a wifi connection, you should be able to install a good VOIP client and have your new iPod touch run transparently as a phone. This is a great option for people who live in cities with free public wifi, students who spend most of their time on campus, or for people who want a home-only iPhone.

Of course with other apps, you can use the touch as a remote to control your HTPC through something like Apple’s Remote app, or the new and amazing plex media center app. I could easily see someone spending a few hundred dollars on a single device which can sit in their house, act as their phone, universal remote, music player, and hand-held game system. iPhoneHome indeed.

Referencing a source high up in T-Mobile’s organization, they claim an 80% chance that iPhones will be available on T-Mobile by the end of Q3 this year (late September). Deutsche Telekom, carrier of the iPhone in Germany and T-Mobile’s parent company, was rumoured to have influence in the deal.

This could be very good news for Wind Mobile as their relatively thin offering of phones is due to them being on the 3G-AWS band, which is slightly different from the standard 3G bands that most carriers operate on. T-Mobile is also on the AWS band, which means that if the iPhone is going to work for T-Mobile, it will work for Wind.

The iPhone 4 doesn’t list the AWS band in its specs, but it could be that the phone is indeed capable of operation on the appropriate frequencies and that they just aren’t listed. Unlocking the phone (which hasn’t been done yet), and trying a T-Mobile (or Wind) SIM would be the first test.

Many have suggested that Verizon would be the next likely candidate once the AT&T exclusivity contract runs out, but for now Verizon runs a CDMA network, while the iPhone is a GSM phone. However, Verizon is upgrading to LTE in the fall, and it looks like it will be a GSM network, so this CDMA argument could be moot.

With VOIP apps such as Skype working over 3G in the US now, this means you can get essentially unlimited calling on your data-only iPhone for roughly $20 USD a month, which includes a $4 unlimited skype calling account and phone number.

And with the upgrade to iOS 4.0 and background running apps, your VOIP apps can be left to run in the background without having to jailbreak. This means you can answer calls when you get them as the app will be running and able to receive the call.

It’s apparently a fairly easy (although not trivial) process. Just activate the iPad SIM (in an iPad 3G), put it in a microSIM -> SIM adapter, pop it into your iPhone, and change your iPhone’s APN settings.

What’s really nice is if you don’t have an iPad 3G, you can get just the SIM from AT&T for $15. Here in Canada, you can get one from Bell for $5, Telus for $10, and Rogers as well. I don’t know how much Rogers sells them for because their website isn’t very clear about it, but they do sell regular SIMs for $10, in case that is any indication.

If you are in the US, then you should also check out another story on the os-x files blog, namely relating to the use of google voice and skype to get virtually unlimited VOIP phone service for about $6 a month. Combine that with a 250MB data-only iPhone plan, and you can browse and talk for a little over $20 a month.

THIS is what wifitalk.ca is about. Data-only smartphone plans for a reasonable rate, with VOIP calling for voice. It’s not quite native in the US, and because Skype and Google Voice don’t yet offer phone numbers in Canada, it’s even farther away here, but this is the goal.

Credit to Kaido of the os-x files blog for the guide.

This story is yet another spinoff of the recent iPhone 4G leak that gizmodo got their hands on. A front-facing camera and upgraded hardware would indeed allow the iPhone to make video+voice calls using iChat over the phone’s data connection. They suppose that this means a death-knell for the voice plans we all pay for on our phones, but I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong, the end of a $50 monthly charge just to talk on your mobile phone using the non-network-straining voice bands is something I welcome, I just don’t think iChat will be the way this ends unless some things change.

First, user experiences with 2-way video and voice on the iPhone over a 3G connection will likely not be great – there’s just not enough real-world network bandwidth right now. As Steve Jobs is well known for not allowing a feature on one of his devices unless it has a polished user experience, I expect iChat video calls to be limited to wifi-only.

This isn’t to say that Skype won’t enable the feature as soon as possible, I just don’t think Apple will go that far just yet. This also isn’t to say that you won’t be able to use iChat voice communication over 3G (even if the quality of VOIP over 3G isn’t always great). But then again, how many people can you call with iChat? Other iChat users. You can’t use it to call your mom’s home phone line (yet).

In order for iChat to be a viable VOIP client it needs to be able to connect to the publicly switched telephone network (PSTN). It currently does not do this, and so I don’t expect iChat to take a major bite out of the communication application market share landscape until this happens. However, with Google getting into the VOIP space with Google Voice and their acquisition of Gizmo5, and Android running on more and more phones, Apple may want to head them off at the pass by leveraging iChat.

What does Apple need in order to compete with Google in this space? The answer is: hardware, software, and functionality. The hardware part is easy – the iPhone and possibly the iPad. The software could be iChat. The functionality is the ability to dial phone numbers.

Think about it: iPhones with iChat pre-installed as an app on OS4 and iChat accounts already created via iTunes with a billable credit card already attached to the account. It wouldn’t be difficult for Apple to offer a VOIP service which would allow you to tie a phone number in to your iChat account, and bill you for minutes and a service plan to call actual phone numbers.

The iPad is a great platform for this, or would be if it had a front-facing camera. Apple has already broken the 3G data-only subscription barrier with the telcos, which provides an interesting precedent for a data-only iPhone plan.

Now imagine iChat on your AppleTV, connected to your TV at home, connected through your broadband. The possibilities here are quite great.

It only took a few years, but it’s finally here: Multitasking for the iPhone.

The single biggest drawback keeping the iPhone and iPod touch squarely out of the VOIP game was the lack of multitasking, and this summer, it will be coming.

Today, Apple announced OS 4.0 for the iPhone, to be released in the summer with a developer preview available now. Steve Jobs announced over 1500 new APIs and a list of features for the new OS version, with the biggest announcement being the ability to run apps in the background.

The app-switching interface looks well thought out (would you expect anything less?), with a double click of the home button bringing up a list of all the currently running apps, sort of like an alt-tab bar. Switching between apps is just a matter of touching the icon on this task bar.

This is a game-changer for VOIP apps such as Skype.

Originally, in order for you to receive a call through your Skype app on your iPhone, the Skype app had to be actively running – you had to have Skype up and on the screen all the time. This made Skype useful for calling out, but essentially useless for receiving calls.

This was somewhat addressed with the introduction of push notifications in OS 3.0. These notifications allowed messages to be sent to an inactive app on your phone, giving you a signal that something needed your attention. Now when someone called you, your Skype app would be notified even when it wasn’t running.

While this seemed like a good solution, in practice it still wasn’t as seamless as a regular phone conversation. Testing with various VOIP apps led to different results. Depending on how long ago you had logged in to your VOIP app, your ability to receive a push notification could expire. Some push notifications were less than instant – often I would be notified that someone was trying to call me 30 seconds after they actually had. This timeframe wasn’t quick enough to allow me to answer an incoming call. On the occasions when the notification came quickly enough, in the majority of cases, the call couldn’t be connected by accepting the call through the push notification.

The result was more of a pager system. Get a push notification on your VOIP app, call the person back a minute or two later.

However, that has all changed with multitasking. Skype can now run 24/7 on your iPhone in the background, reacting instantly to incoming calls. You can be in a conversation, put Skype in the background, bring up a web page, and then switch back to Skype.

Add to that the new ability to change the background wallpaper, and it makes me think that Steve just jailbroke the iPhone

Update: “We are releasing it for end users for iPhone and iPod touch for users this summer. For the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen. And, for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen, they will run many things… but there are some things they won’t run, like multitasking.”

Looks like no multitasking for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen users.

List of features in the new iPhone OS 4.0

• creating playlists
• digital zoom
• tap to focus on video
• gift apps
• geotagging
• places in the photo app
• changing the home screen wallpaper
• bluetooth keyboard support
• spell checker

The site isn’t letting me actually choose a phone, so it could be a website issue. Anyone else having success?

Engadget was alerted to the development by iCall, maker of an app which could take an incoming GSM call and flip it over to wifi/VOIP.

3G Skype coming to the iPhone?

They added the following interesting comment:

Interestingly, iCall says its 3G-friendly VoIP app is available now, and is the first and only such app in the App Store — which seems like some pretty quick turnaround on everyone’s part, but apparently the 3G restriction wasn’t anything to do with the software itself, but instead a server-side block. We just tested this out and it totally works, and while we’ll be looking for more verification that the ban has indeed been lifted, it sounds like it’s time for some cheaply connected international parties in the streets.

Parties in the streets indeed. Can anyone else confirm this?

As noted previously, Skype has a 3G capable version of their app ready and waiting for this restriction to be lifted. Considering the quick turnaround on iCall’s part, it can’t be long before Skype and others follow suit.

Update: Fring’s client now supports VOIP over 3G