It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&Ts signal is weak, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone.
And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.
Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voice mail, and so on. The company behind it, Toktumi (get it?), imagines that youll distribute the Line2 number to business contacts, and your regular iPhone number to friends and family. Your second line can be an 800 number, if you wish, or you can transfer an existing number.
To that end, Toktumi offers, on its Web site, a raft of Google Voice-ish features that are intended to help a small businesses look bigger: call screening, Do Not Disturb hours and voice mail messages sent to you as e-mail. You can create an automated attendant Press 1 for sales, Press 2 for accounting, and so on that routes incoming calls to other phone numbers. Or, if youre pretending to be a bigger business than you are, route them all to yourself.
The Line2 app is a carbon copy, a visual clone, of the iPhones own phone software. The dialing pad, your iPhone Contacts list, your recent calls list and visual voice mail all look just like the iPhones.
(Lets pause for a moment here to blink, dumbfounded, at that point. Apples rules prohibit App Store programs that look or work too much like the iPhones own built-in apps. For example, Apple rejected the Google Voice app because, as Apple explained to the Federal Communications Commission, it works by replacing the iPhones core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls. That is exactly what Line2 does. Oh wellthe Jobs works in mysterious ways.)
So you have a second line on your iPhone. But thats not the best part.
Line2 also turns the iPhone into a dual-mode phone. That is, it can make and receive calls either using either the AT&T airwaves as usual, or now this is the best part over the Internet. Any time youre in a wireless hot spot, Line2 places its calls over Wi-Fi instead of AT&Ts network.
Thats a game-changer. Where, after all, is cellphone reception generally the worst? Right indoors. In your house or your office building, precisely where you have Wi-Fi. Line2 in Wi-Fi means rock-solid, confident reception indoors.
Line2 also runs on the iPod Touch. When youre in a Wi-Fi hot spot, your Touch is now a full-blown cellphone, and you dont owe AT&T a penny.
But wait, theres more.
Turns out Wi-Fi calls dont use up any AT&T minutes. You can talk all day long, without ever worrying about going over your monthly allotment of minutes. Wi-Fi calls are free forever.
Well, not quite free; Line2 service costs $15 a month (after a 30-day free trial).
But heres one of those cases where spending more could save you money. If youre in a Wi-Fi hot spot most of the time (at work, for example), thats an awful lot of calling you can do in Wi-Fi probably enough to downgrade your AT&T plan to one that gives you fewer minutes. If youre on the 900-minute or unlimited plan ($90 or $100 a month), for example, you might be able to get away with the 450-minute plan ($70). Even with Line2s fee, youre saving $5 or $15 a month.
Line2 also lets you call overseas phone numbers for Skype-like rates: 2 to 5 cents a minute to most countries. (A full table of rates is available at toktumi.com.) As a handy globetrotters bonus, calls home to numbers in the United States from overseas hot spots are free.
All of these benefits come to you when youre in a Wi-Fi hot spot, because your calls are carried by the Internet instead of by AT&T. Interestingly enough, though, Line2 can also make Internet calls even when youre not in a hot spot.
It can, at your option, place calls over AT&Ts 3G data network, where its available. Every iPhone plan includes unlimited use of this 3G network its how your iPhone sends e-mail and surfs the Web. So once again, Line2 calls dont use up any of your monthly voice minutes.
Unfortunately, voice connections on the 3G network arent as strong and reliable as the voice or Wi-Fi methods. Cellular data networks arent made for seamless handoffs from cell tower to tower as you drive, for example theres not much need for it if youre just doing e-mail and Web so dropped calls are more likely. Fortunately, if youre on a 3G data-network call and you walk into a hot spot, Line2 switches to the more reliable Wi-Fi network seamlessly, in midcall.
E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Tags: iPhone app, reliable wi-fi network, Wi-Fi calls, Wi-Fi hot spot