S60Tips.com

Now you can have one number of life…. a phone number that is not tied to a device or operator. It is tied to you. How can this happen? The answer is GrandCentral from Google.

For those who don’t know, Google has just acquired Central 4 months ago. I signed up for their service a few days after the acquisition. Unfortunately, the beta service has not been widely open. Today, I received an email from GrandCentral saying that I can now sign up to their service. Note that the service is still not publicly open yet; so you may not be able to sign up immediately.

What can we do with GrandCentral?

• One number. The first and most used feature is one number for life. Even if later you change your operator, you can keep your number. It’s yours forever.
• RingShare. It supports ringback tone, a feature that allows the caller listen custom sound that we choose.
• PhoneSpam. It is possible to block suspected spam callers.
• Greetings. You can record your personal voicemail greetings to your caller.
• Visual Voice mail. You can visit GrandCentral web site, http://m.grandcentral.com from your mobile device and check voice mail visually.

• and many more.

Bonus Links (other services from Google)

• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part I) - Google Web Services
• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part II) - Google SMS Service
• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part III) - YouTube
• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part IV) - GOOG-411
• Featured Freeware - Google Maps for Mobile
• Featured Freeware - GMail Application For Mobile

This is the last part of my postings about VoIP applications. If you missed them, here is the link to the first part, second part, third part and fourth part.

As I said earlier, none of the current VoIP applications satisfy met yet. Some of them have issues with usability, especially user interface. Some others are not reliable. Sometimes, they just drive me crazy because it is so difficult to initiate a call. All of them suffer from sound quality.

The last row of the table above contains score for each of the application. Score 1 is the worst and 5 is the best. As you can see, I don?t give score 5 to any of them.

My recommendation:

• If you are looking for SIP application, Truphone may be the choice.
• If your phone does not support SIP but has WiFi, fring may be the choice.
• If you have rather old phone that doesn?t have WiFi/3G, go with iSkoot.
• If IM support is important for you, then go with EQO.

Update (07-Sep-2007): It seems Gizmo has shown a lot of improvements in the latest version. That’s why; I raised Gizmo score.

• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part I
• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part II
• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part III
• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part IV

As I promised on my previous posting, I am going to discuss several VoIP applications. Here, I would like to discuss EQO and fring. I was planning to discuss barablu in this posting. Unfortunately, for some reasons, I couldn?t make any call yet. I have contacted their customer service asking for advice.

EQO

Web site: http://www.eqo.com

Technology: VoIP over cellular

IM support: MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, AIM, Jabber

What I like:

• We don?t need WiFi hotspot to make a call. It uses VoIP over cellular technology; so as long as we have cellular connection, we can make a call. This solution does not suitable for us who are in a roaming area though.
• Support caller ID. It means the caller?s number appear on the callee?s phone. Not so many VoIP applications support this cool feature.
• It supports all popular Instant Messaging services.

What I don?t like:

• It is a Java application. This may be just my personal opinion, but I feel that Java applications are slow and require a lot of memory.
• The user interface is a little bit odd. For example, most S60 applications use left soft key for OK and right soft key for Cancel; EQO uses the other way around.
• Searching a contact is difficult. We can only search based on the first character of the person?s name.
• The service is not so reliable. The service number sometimes cannot route my call to the destination although the phone number is correct. EQO guy just contacted me regarding of this issue. The problem was because I switch between my 2 SIM card. It looks like EQO application is bound to our phone number. Surprisingly, I don?t find a way to change my phone number. I have asked EQO guy for explanation. Let?s see what their answer.

fring

Web site: http://www.fring.com

Technology: Proprietary, SIP

IM support: Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Twitter

What I like:

• It is my favorite VoIP application for S60 platform so far.
• It supports Skype and SIP. It is still very rare that VoIP applications support both of them.

What I don’t like:

• The user interface is a little bit complicated. For example, there are several icons at the top with Skype, Google Talk and MSN logos. My first impression was that we should be able to switch between those icons. In fact, it is not possible. Another example, it is difficult to find the phone number from the contacts list. We can only see the phone number if we select Call menu.
• No support of Yahoo! Messenger.
• Cannot use loudspeaker during call.
• Sometimes it is difficult to make a call. For some unknown reasons, the call is terminated immediately.

Compatible devices: S60 2nd, 3rd Edition, Nokia Nseries, Nokia Eseries.

Update (29-Jun-2007): Update one item at EQO review after EQO guy contacted me.

Bonus Links

• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part I
• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part III
• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part IV
• Which VoIP Applications To Use - Part V