wifitalk.ca

Google has extended their trial of Gmail Voice through the remainder of 2011.

Launched back in August 2010, gmail voice is an extension to gmail which allows users to call standard telephone numbers in Canada and the USA directly from gmail for free. Calls to other countries can be made for low rates. It achieved remarkable early success, as 1 million phone calls were made in the first 24 hours alone. 10 million calls were placed using the service in its first week.

Intended to be a market test, Google stated that they wanted to keep the service free for Canada/US calls, but needed to be able to justify it through some kind of revenue-generating business case. Apparently they found enough of one to warrant extending the service through 2011.

If the user has a Google Voice account, that person can also receive phone calls through their web browser. If the user does not have a Google Voice account (non-US users), the user will not be able to receive incoming phone calls to their browser.

I personally tried it on my laptop to make a call over wireless-g wifi and my home 15/1 cable connection and had issues with the sound cutting out and the connection dropping. Skype worked just fine immediately after however. I admittedly haven’t given it too much of a trial however, but am hopeful that it will become more usable.

Oh, and unfortunately it doesn’t work on mobile phones, at least not on my iPhone4.

Due to Skype’s troubles with their service being completely knocked out when a bug in their windows client killed their service, they have just sent out emails to their users with a voucher for up to 30 minutes of call time.

It’s probably only worth about $1, but still it’s nice to get something from them.

It looks like the world is getting smaller.

Skype has updated their Skype-to-Go service in an interesting way. You now get a separate, direct number for each contact you have. No more dialling your Skype-to-Go number and then dialling out from that (although that’s still an option). How does it work? Well, let’s say I have a friend with a regular telephone number.

Friend A: mobile 778 555-0001

Now, before this update, in order to call that friend, I could either call his phone number directly, or I could dial my own Skype-to-Go number, then dial his number to use my Skype credit. What this update does is it gives each contact their own Skype-to-Go number that you can call and it will go directly to them. Your contact listing will now look like this:

Friend A: mobile 778 555-0001 skype-to-go 778 555-0002

If I use the 0001 number, my regular cellular minutes are used. If I used the 0002 number, my regular cellular minutes are used, and my Skype credit is also used. So what’s the advantage?

Well, you can set your own local area code to be the one that all Skype-to-Go numbers are created with. Let’s say I move to Toronto, but want to call my family in Vancouver. That’s a long-distance call which can cost a lot of money. However, I can change my Skype-to-Go preferences so that I get a local Skype-to-Go number for my long-distance contacts.

Friend A: mobile 778 555-0001 skype-to-go 647 555-0003

If I am in Toronto, calling the 647 number will be a local call as far as my billing is concerned, but I am actually making a long-distance call. The nice thing about this setup is I can save this alternate number in this friend’s contact information in my phone and call it depending on where I am.

If you just have regular Skype credit, then your Skype credit is used, and you have to pay a connection fee which runs about 6 cents a call depending on where you are calling. If you are on one of the Skype unlimited accounts, then you pay nothing extra. Basically, this is a very simple $7/mo add-on unlimited long-distance package.

Now THIS is a phone worth waiting for.

Today, Google launched the Nexus S phone. Made by Samsung and based on the Galaxy-S, the Nexus S is the follow-up to Google’s first foray into self-branding a phone with the Nexus One. Techcrunch has an in-depth review (I don’t get hardware sent to me like they do unfortunately), so I recommend heading over there to check it out.

I will highlight a few things however. First, the phone has a 400×800 AMOLED screen which is “second only to the iPhone’s screen”. Nice.

Second, the phone has built in near-field communications (NFC). This is likely a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip built into the phone which will allow short range communications with other nearby NFC-enabled devices. This is the same technology that is in your credit card when you wave it over a sensor to make small purchases. It’s not really useful now, but is more of a forward-thinking move by Google to include it as surely contact swapping and phone payment apps will be coming soon.

Third, VOIP/SIP is built in right from the get-go with Gingerbread (Android OS 2.3). It was so in other versions of Android as well, but as this site is about mobile VOIP, this is the key point for me. There’s no need for a third-party hack or software in order to talk over your data plan without using voice minutes. You do still need a VOIP provider, but those can be pretty cheap.

Fourth, Google has a nice page displaying the tech specs of the Nexus S, and we see that it includes support for the AWS spectrum. This means it will be available with T-Mobile in the US, and will work on the new Mobilicity and Wind Mobile networks in Canada. The new carriers in Canada have been missing a prime, flagship-type phone for a while and now it looks like they will get it.

If you’re an iPhone person, you’ll likely still be tied to Bell/Telus/Rogers, but if you’re a person looking to try out a new carrier and really care about having a top of the line phone, this may be your chance.

I didn’t fight too hard, but renewed a 3 year contract with Bell for 2 new iPhone4 32GB phones. I’m on a family share plan with my wife and we share the minutes and data.

• 600 anytime minutes
• 1 GB data
• voicemail/callerID/call display
• early evenings/weekends
• unlimited partner to partner calling in Canada
• 250 text messages sent / unlimited incoming
• $90 a month

This is a shared plan so we share everything. The actual plan is for half of the minutes/data on one phone for $45. We doubled it and share so if one goes over, it comes out of the other’s minutes/data. This is supposed to include 911/system access fee but we’ll see when the bill comes.

My contract with Bell ended back in August and I was in the market for some new phones. My wife and I had been using a couple of voice-only Samsung flip phones for the past three years and the time was right to make the jump to a pair of smartphones.

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:

Managed to get a Google Voice account despite being outside the US? Want the new Google Voice iOS app? Here’s how to download it.

1. Create a US iTunes account (no credit card needed). See here.
2. Using your iDevice, go to Settings/Store/Sign Out
3. Sign in to your US iTunes account
4. Download the Google Voice app on the App Store
5. Repeat sign out/sign in process, but sign in to your regular iTunes account.

Voila.

The official Google Voice app for iOS is finally on iTunes.

The techcrunch story has a lot of the details on the history of the app, but, briefly, it has been a long time in coming. Apple approved, then removed a third-party app called GV Mobile, which was essentially a Google Voice front-end, saying that the app violated Apple’s terms of use for apps in that it replicated functionality of the built-in phone application.

Recently, Apple revised its app guidlines, and GV Mobile (now GV Mobile+), as well as some others have been re-admitted. The official Google Voice app has been in the review queue for a while and just today has been approved.

But only in the US.

This makes sense, seeing as how Google Voice is officially only available in the US, and it is fairly easy to get around the geoblocking on this app as well. You’ll just need a US iTunes account (see here), and then follow my instructions here. I just tested it out and have the app on my Canadian iPhone.

The app does not work with “gmail voice” as you do need a full Google Voice account in order to log in to the app.

The app doesn’t seem to work with the iPod Touch (even the 4th gen which has a speaker and mic, and the ability to use the mic-enabled headphones), so this seems like an oversight. Let’s see if Google fixes this and allows iPod Touch users to use the app as well. No word yet on if it works with the iPad.

At least the app is here now (for some of us). Now we just need Google to expand Google Voice service to other countries.

Push notifications for text messaging are very quick and work as expected. It’s a nice way to get around expensive text messaging fees if you don’t subscribe to a plan.

The boy genius report has some leaked photos of the Samsung Nexus S, and claims that it may be shipping with the ability to work on T-Mobile’s 3G-AWS spectrum. If this is the case, then it may be coming to Canada through Wind and Mobilicity in the near future too.

The new entrants can offer lower prices and a better experience (although that can be debated), but they still suffer from two issues: lack of coverage area, and limited phone selection. If you stay primarily in one of the cities that they have coverage, then maybe the first issue isn’t really an issue for you. If you don’t need the latest and greatest phone, then maybe the second issue isn’t really an issue for you.

But for some people, the connection service is a secondary decision and the device comes first, and those are the people who the new entrants still can’t get. A Nexus S would bring a premium Android phone to them and would go a long way to satisfying those potential customers.

T-Mobile is going to be offering the Samsung Galaxy Tab android-based tablet. This is potentially good news for new Canadian entrants Wind Mobile and Mobilicity, as they run on a similar 3G-AWS band that T-Mobile does in the US.

There are two issues keeping the new entrants from a large number of customers in Canada, lack of devices compatible with their networks, and limited network coverage. Both companies are actively expanding their networks at a rapid rate, and this story is an indication that they may be adding another premium device to their lineups.