We have seen some applications that have brought VOIP based calls to the iPhone in the form of SoonR or the web-based Skype for iPhone from Shape Services. However based on news from Blognation we could soon be able to make VoIP calls from the iPhone using a native iPhone application. Truphone, the company that offers free mobile calls to other Truphone users & very cheap calls to anyone else by routing mobile calls via the internet has announced a very early alpha version of their VoIP client for the iPhone.
Truphone's VoIP client for iPhone is still in alpha-alpha version so it isn't yet ready for prime time nor is it for the faint hearted. Apparently the application currently requires the use of terminal on the iPhone to tell the phone to use its on-board SIP stack to place the call over Wi-Fi instead of via the SIM card. As you know to use the terminal application itself you will need to first Jailbreak the iPhone using iPhone hacks such as iBrickr or iFuntastic.
As per Truphone the final version of the iPhone application will include simplified activation process and a capability to intelligently switch back and forth between VoIP when Wi-Fi is available and the use of the SIM card when out of Wi-Fi range and all this without the need to break the SIM lock to use Truphone’s iPhone VoIP application, a feature that sounds very interesting.
It will be interesting to see how AT&T reacts to such native iPhone applications. I am sure Apple will get quite a bit of pressure from them to block or break such iPhone hacks first as like unlocked iPhones it would directly impact the revenue AT&T would expect from the iPhone users and as Oliver Starr over at Blognation has pointed out this would be must have iPhone application when you are on international roaming.
However, these are still early days as one of the challenges they are facing is scalability as they are not sure how many simultaneous connected clients they could support using the new application which is the reason for not opening up registrations on their website. They plan to allow only a limited number of beta testers to test the application on a first come-first served basis.
The company expects to release a true beta version of the app in approximately four weeks, so do stay tuned @ iPhone Hacks to get the latest on Truphone’s VoIP client for the iPhone.
You can also see below the video of Truphone CEO James Tagg demoing Truphone over Wi-Fi on the Apple iPhone at DEMOfall in San Diego.
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