- What is all this about? sipgate brings VoIP to your iPhone. Finally! You can use sipgate to place and receive calls over Wi-Fi. Our software is 100% standard compliant and is not tied to any particular SIP service. You can use it with any SIP service you like. And yes, it is 100% free.
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Why would I want to use it?
You can benefit from all the great features SIP brings into the game. You can
- save mobile minutes, whenever Wi-Fi is available
- bypass roaming charges
- place calls at virtually no cost when travelling abroad
- etc.
Please, understand that none of these features are provided by sipgate. You need to purchase a SIP service and a Wi-Fi connection from third parties in order to enjoy them.
- What does "beta" mean? Beta means, that this is a technology preview with some known issues and not yet guaranteed to work. "sipgate for iPhone" may not be compatible with current or future firmware releases by Apple. It comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY OR GUARANTEES OF ANY SORT. If in doubt, please consult the license agreement, prior to using "sipgate for iPhone". It might irreversibly destroy your iPhone or eat your firstborn.
- Does sipgate support the iPhone 3G? At this time sipgate is only available for firmware version 1.1.4. i.e. firmware 2.0 is not supported. However, the iPhone 3G runs firmware 2.0 and consequently sipgate does currently not work.
- Are you saying this can break my iPhone? Absolutely. But you will waive that risk. So, we are cool.
- That scares me. When will you provide a final version? At this time Apple has not released sufficient documentation or development guidelines let alone a VoIP compatible software development kit. Not knowing how the iPhone is supposed to behave in certain network situations we cannot possibly guarantee anything, though we do believe, we did a good job. In any case: Apple has announced future support for third party applications on the iPhone and we are truly looking forward to the "open iPhone". Once we can rely on the "open iPhone" platform to behave in a documented and predictable way, there will be a final release.
- Are there any more important issues that I need to know of before installing sipgate on my iPhone? Yes, please take a minute to look through this list of important issues before installing sipgate on your iPhone.
- Are there any system requirements? In order to use the sipgate iPhone client we recommend that you update your iPhone's firmware to v1.1.4.
- Who are you guys? A group of technology lovers with a shared passion for communication solutions and gadgets. We are fortunate to have the backing of the brains behind sipgate in Europe, one of Europe's largest and most innovative network-agnostic telecom service.
- Why did you do that? We are in the process of developing next generation communications solutions. Toying around with ideas and gadgets really is our thing right now. The idea of including everyones favorite gadget came quite naturally. Funny enough no one else did it.
- What is this going to cost me? Nada. Absolutely nothing. We are not charging you for the software. We are not charging you for the service. We are not charging anything at all. This one is on us. Enjoy!
- When configuring sipgate for iPhone I get a "authentication failed" message. Please make sure to use the right case. Your sipgate password usually is upper case while your iPhone probably is set to lower case.
- Can I use my favorite VoIP service? Absolutely. Just log in at www.sipgate.com and set up your account to forward calls to and from your favorite VoIP service.
- I do not have a SIP account with anyone. What can I do? We are throwing in 111 minutes for you to call domestic phones. You can easily test drive "sipgate for iPhone" and then decide further down the road from whom you want to buy your SIP service.
- How about incoming calls? Will my iPhone ring? At this time there is no meaningful support for incoming calls. While you can answer incoming calls whenever sipgate is running on your iPhone it does not alert you, when the VoIP software is not running. The reason being the iPhone's high power consumption while Wi-Fi is active. If we just suspended the software to monitor incoming calls, your battery would be empty in no time. We realized this is a halfhearted solution. We are working on improving this release.
- What about 911? It is the responsibility of your service provider to provide you with 911 dialing. We recommend, you use the iPhone's regular phone service and place the emergency call over the cellular network.
- Can I rely on my VoIP provider to connect me with 911? No, calls to 911 will always be placed over a cellular network - even if you remove the SIM card from your iPhone.
- How can I dial another sipgate user from my iPhone? When signing up, we have provided you with a sipgate number. You can dial any sipgate number or receive calls at your own sipgate number free of charge.
- Can I use my VoIP account directly from my iPhone? We expect most iPhone owners to roam in various rather complex Wi-fi environments i.e. on campus or at coffee shops. Most likely that will expose you to difficult network environments which traditional VoIP services tend to have difficulties with. sipgate provides you with sophisticated technology to overcome those issues. In order to do so, we need to know, what network environment your iPhone happens to be in and consequently have your iPhone connect to sipgate directly. We recommend you store your VoIP account at sipgate.com. In any case are you welcome to configure any SIP service directly on the iPhone.
- I do not trust my local network. Do you support encryption? The iPhone supports encryption. Just set up a VPN to a trusted network of your choice as you would to secure your email.
- I like your software. Can I buy services from you? We are sorry - you cannot.
- Who exactly did this? Quite a team in fact. Credits go to: Markus, Julian, Marcus, Daniel, Richy, Markus, Julia, Lea, Tobi, Bastian, Jens, Matthias, Joachim, Oliver, Tim, Martin, Ron, and everyone else who supported us with smiles and caffeine.
- What is it you are working on? The release of "sipgate for iPhone" aside we are developing next generation communication solutions for small business and enterprise use. At this time we are not ready to announce products or services or even hint at a timeline. If you like what you have seen, sign up and be the first to know should we make anything else available to the public.