At an event in São Paulo, Brazil today, Google announced that its one-on-one video calling app, Duo, will be soon gaining audio-only calling on iOS and Android. The feature is already available starting today to customers in Brazil and will be rolling out to users around the world in the coming days. With the update, Duo for iPhone now supports both video and audio calling and effectively becomes a viable alternative to Apple's FaceTime.
Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon, today announced it's launched Chime, a new Voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing platform for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows and Android.
Aimed at business users, Chime allows you to host or join virtual meetings, take advantage of content and screen sharing across platforms and more.
Amazon promises noise-cancelling wideband audio and crystal clear high-definition video with the new service. Chime for iPhone is available at no charge from App Store. The Mac client can be downloaded directly from Amazon.
iOS 10's been found to upload missed call logs from apps like WhatsApp and Skype to servers, as well as near-real time FaceTime call logs—even if iCloud backup has been turned off, according to a Russian company called Elcomsoft which makes iPhone forensic tools aimed at law enforcement agencies.
Elcomsoft CEO Vladimir Katalov suspects in an interview with Forbes that this is most likely a result of iOS 10's expanded scope of call logging due to the new CallKit framework which was designed to make VoIP calls from apps like Viber, WhatsApp and Skype behave like cellular calls and integrate with Phone's Recents and Favorites.
According to Apple itself, call log syncing through iCloud is a convenient feature that elevates user experience by allowing customers to easily return calls from VoIP apps.
Apple has recently introduced CallKit, a new framework available to developers that allows them to integrate their VoIP apps with the native Phone app user interface. In essence, this is a great addition that puts VoIP apps at virtually the same level as normal phone calls. Incoming Skype or WhatsApp calls, for example, are now displayed fully on the Lock screen, which is an improvement compared to how these calls were handled prior to iOS 10. Likewise, any call placed or received with a supported VoIP app will be logged into the Phone app like a normal call.
This tight integration of VoIP apps and the native Phone app UI can have a downside for some users who might prefer not to see their recent Skype calls history show up in their Phone app. If you're one of these people, we'll show you exactly how to stop Skype from showing recent calls in your Phone app.
Two weeks ago, Microsoft-owned Skype launched a major update with Siri, Phone, Contacts and Lock screen integration, courtesy of iOS 10's new CallKit framework which allows calls from VoIP apps to behave like normal phone calls.
Today, both Skype for iPhone and Skype for iPad received a minor refresh which brings out a toggle for enabling or disabling CallKit integration, the ability to get new contact requests as a notification and under-the-hood fixes and improvements to make the app run more reliably on iOS 10 devices.
Microsoft today announced availability of freshly updated Skype for iOS apps. Bumped to version 6.25, both Skype for iPhone and Skype for iPad now include SiriKit support that lets them integrate with Siri so you can call people and send messages using just your voice. The apps also take advantage of CallKit, which allows VoIP Skype calls to behave like normal cellular calls with fullscreen contact images on the Lock screen and integration with Phone's Recents and Favorites on iSO 10 devices.
Facebook just pushed a major update to its Messenger software in the App Store. On iPhones with iOS 10, the app now takes advantage of Apple's new CallKit framework to make audio (VoIP) calls from Messenger look and behave like normal cellular calls with full support for Lock screen and Phone integration.
Bumped to version 89.0, the app now shows incoming VoIP calls from Messenger contacts right on your Lock screen complete with fullscreen contact images, standard controls like the Mute, Keypad, Speaker, Add Call and Video buttons and more.
Microsoft today pushed an update to its mobile Skype application for iOS, bumping the app's version number on the App Store to 6.22. The new edition includes several enhancements related to notifications and Skype Credit, which can now be purchased from within the app in more currencies than before. Skype for iPhone and iPad are available free on the App Store.
iOS 10 turns the iPhone's boring Phone app into a software platform in its own right. Developers are now permitted to add previously unheard-of capabilities to Phone using Apple's new application programming interface (API), called CallKit, allowing Voice over IP (VoIP) calls from apps like Skype and WhatsApp to behave like cellular calls.
CallKit-enabled apps put contact images on the Lock screen for incoming VoIP calls and are deeply integrated with Contacts and Phone's Recents and Favorites.
Phone on iOS 10 packs in other exciting improvements that we honestly started to believe would never get implemented on the iOS platform, like voicemail transcription à la Google Voice and third-party extensions for detecting spammy calls automatically.
So let's get to it...
iOS 10 was shown off at WWDC 2016 on Monday, and with all of the new features Apple brought to the table, the Phone app is certainly one of the spotlights that deserves attention.
Apple's new Phone app in iOS 10 is going to get a lot of useful new features to make using the phone aspect of your iPhone a whole lot better.
Slack, a cloud-based, cross-platform team collaboration service, has rolled out support for voice calling, the team announced yesterday. With it, team members can call one another without leaving Slack, and calls even have an emoji response feature.
Calls are currently voice-only, but Slack says that features like video calling and screen sharing will come in the future. Slack is available across iOS, OS X, the web and other platforms.
Voice over IP (VoIP), a technology for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over the Internet, is at the heart of an unbelievable $2.8 billion patent infringement lawsuit that VoIP-Pal, a Bellevue-based company, filed this morning against the iPhone maker.
“We are confident the current good will on both sides will result in a favorable outcome for all parties involved,” said VoIP-Pal CEO Emil Malak in a prepared statement.