OK, thought I'd save some folks a bit of research. I've been noodling around to find a way to make my ipod a phone. I waded through lots of stuff online and tried several apps in the app store. My goal was to make the entire enterprise as close to free as possible. I have a couple of solutions to share that seem to work well.
First, here's what you need:
1. Earbuds with built in mic. I found some OEM Apple ones that go with the iphone for 2 bucks online at Amazon. I ordered a couple of pairs since shipping was more than the cost of the headphones.
2. VOIP. This is the service that makes the actual phone call for you.
3. Phone Client. This is the software that sits on your ipod and does the dialing and interacts with the VOIP.
4. An internet connection.
Number 1 and 4 are easy. Let's work on 2 and 3. For these options I ended up getting 2 different options to work.
Option 1- Vonage. If you go to the app store there are 3 different Vonage clients. The one you want is Vonage for ipod. This app will do both number 2 and 3 above. It's a phone client and a VOIP service. Both are free in the US. That is to say calling any US number is free. You can call from China to the US and it's free! When you first install and initialize the software it asks you to choose a plan. If you hit cancel and then relaunch the software you can make calls for free. It'll show that you have an account balance of 0 dollars. No worries because you don't need any money in your account to make calls.
Cons- No incoming calls.
Option 2-Whistle. Whistle is like Vonage in that it is a phone client and a VOIP client. I believe there is the option with Whistle to use a different VOIP client if you already have one. The Whistle one seems to work just fine though. Whistle is ad supported. That means you have to listen to a short ad before you can make a call. There are also ads displayed on screen. Unlike Vonage though Whistle allows incoming calls. It uses the push feature of the ipod to alert you to incoming calls. Just like Vonage calls are free.
Cons- annoying ads.
That's it! There are obviously many more options than these two. They are a good place to start though. I'd try these two out and see if they work for you. If you like the way they work then you can look around at some other options available... All in all though I'd say that a 2 dollar investment for all the free calls you want is a great buy!
First, here's what you need:
1. Earbuds with built in mic. I found some OEM Apple ones that go with the iphone for 2 bucks online at Amazon. I ordered a couple of pairs since shipping was more than the cost of the headphones.
2. VOIP. This is the service that makes the actual phone call for you.
3. Phone Client. This is the software that sits on your ipod and does the dialing and interacts with the VOIP.
4. An internet connection.
Number 1 and 4 are easy. Let's work on 2 and 3. For these options I ended up getting 2 different options to work.
Option 1- Vonage. If you go to the app store there are 3 different Vonage clients. The one you want is Vonage for ipod. This app will do both number 2 and 3 above. It's a phone client and a VOIP service. Both are free in the US. That is to say calling any US number is free. You can call from China to the US and it's free! When you first install and initialize the software it asks you to choose a plan. If you hit cancel and then relaunch the software you can make calls for free. It'll show that you have an account balance of 0 dollars. No worries because you don't need any money in your account to make calls.
Cons- No incoming calls.
Option 2-Whistle. Whistle is like Vonage in that it is a phone client and a VOIP client. I believe there is the option with Whistle to use a different VOIP client if you already have one. The Whistle one seems to work just fine though. Whistle is ad supported. That means you have to listen to a short ad before you can make a call. There are also ads displayed on screen. Unlike Vonage though Whistle allows incoming calls. It uses the push feature of the ipod to alert you to incoming calls. Just like Vonage calls are free.
Cons- annoying ads.
That's it! There are obviously many more options than these two. They are a good place to start though. I'd try these two out and see if they work for you. If you like the way they work then you can look around at some other options available... All in all though I'd say that a 2 dollar investment for all the free calls you want is a great buy!
