Rumors New iPod Touch Won’t Be Huge For Teens, VoIP
While I admit I like the idea of a more capable Apple iPod Touch (with a built-in mic and camera), and I agree that it will be a great mobile multimedia device, I disagree with Andy Abramson’s assertion that it will be big for VoIP.
One of the use cases Andy mentions that he think will be huge is “Pre-teens who need a phone but can’t afford a contract.” First of all, the iPod Touch is quite a pricey device for most teens, whereas your typical prepaid phone is a lot cheaper. Sure, some teens will get an iPod Touch, but unless the price goes down, not as many as Andy thinks.
Once you get past the price issue, the second, more important piece of functionality is missing from the iPod Touch: SMS. This is the killer app for teens. I know, I had one staying with me for 10 days. I know there are probably services that make that happen, and with Apple’s Push Notification Sevices, realtime SMS on an iPod Touch is doable.
Even if such a service exists, how will the teens find out? Word of mouth, I suppose. Even so, most of these services require credit cards for payments, making them non-starters again for teens.
Now, I do agree that an iPod Touch with an integrated microphone would make a compelling VoIP device. The reason I don’t think it will be big? The lack of background applications. In order to make and receive calls, you have to leave an application running in the foreground. That might work for making calls–which I could see some business travelers using–but for receiving calls? A non-starter from my point of view.
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Tags: andy abramson, apple, IPod Touch Fnord
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Comment by Tsahi Levent-Levi
Dameon, I tend to agree with your analysis.
I’d also say that teenagers get their phone contracts through their parents, and from what I’ve seen here in Israel (and especially from my younger sister), they usually get what they want with the monthly shouting when the bill shows up on the mail.
You can add to the background applications the fact that there still is the requirement to download from the AppStore (and finding the app), which won’t work for most users – it has been observed already that such Apps are usually downloaded, used and discarded within a span of a single week.
Tsahi
Comment by tom
for this to be big VOIP would have to be built in as a backround app. also it would be a very big help for this to be able to hold up to your head like a regular cell phone.
i have used voip(mostly skype, but also fring and nimbuzz) on an itouch. it is really not very practical for inbound calls even after jailbreaking to enable backrounding and keeping wifi alive all the time.
as for the SMS. google voice is the first non-traditional phone company to accept SMS;s to their DID’s but i expect that to become normal in the near term.
if apple wats this they need to put the mic and speaker in the correct locations for use like a tradional phone and build the voip in so it work exactly like the cell network connected verision. if they do that they will have a huge VOIP hit. but i do not see pre-teens so much as all sorts of people who do not really need cell phone connectivity and would be happier with the trade off of a much lower phone bill but wifi only usage.
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[...] Rumors New iPod Touch Won’t Be Huge For Teens, VoIP (phoneboy.com) [...]
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[...] Damien Welsh (aka Phoneboy) also chimes in with some seemingly sound logic to challenge Andy’s assertion. [...]
Comment by Justin Goldberg
If I wanted to build a service that supports unlimited calls to another country (prepaid, probably), couldn’t I just put an Asterisk pbx in each country?
Comment by tom
Justin,
take a look at this:
http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_8289.html
Comment by Justin Goldberg
tom,
thanks for the link. That’s a great forum!