"Whether Truphone turns it into a commercial product will depend on what proportion of iPhone users decide to unlock their phones for application installation."

Given how easy it is to jailbreak an iPhone, I suspect this one will have no problems attracting potential users. AT&T, T-Mobile and others will watch this one very closely. I suspect they are already crafting threatening letters as I write.

"Of course, a working VoIP client could well be the killer application which drives users to unlock, but whether Truphone has the resources, or inclination, to take that gamble remains to be seen."

If they have the inclination, the resources will appear, Peer Provided.

Manna Manana, Today Feast the Strength in dDepth in IntelAIgents.

Known Unknowns? Or a Czech Mate Move On?

The iphone isn't anything special, it's just another phone in a market that is already crowded. There are plenty of other phones available that don't need to be unlocked. I doubt iphone is going to be the success that sites like this are hyping it up to be.-

I don't believe they've been able to do this.

Cast your mind back to when they demoed their app on the N80 - not the N80i, which has built-in VoIP, but the N80, which hasn't....

When they supposedly launched the N80 client, they put one blurry video on youtube (now pulled) **with half of the screen obscured** (allegedly to shield the dialed number) and the world rejoiced. Watch the video closely though and you'll see the white space at the end of the phone number. If it were a real SIP call, there would be ..@trup... visible at the end of the number.

Plenty of people nagged and nagged Truphone for the N80 client, but were told a string of fibs about code signing and how development code is locked to a particular handset (it isn't, you just self-sign and turn off signature checking).

Once the N80i was launched, the promise of the N80 client disappeared, presumably on the assumption that the early adopters would flash their N80 to an N80i.

If they were to launch it on a vanilla N80, they'd have to write a SIP user agent,.

Now, we have the same charade again - blurry video, nothing on the iPhone but a picture of a phone keypad. Watch how the iPhone disappears from view when the call is made. All they do is show that a Nokia E61i can receive calls, you don't get to see the iPhone show "Dialling..." or "Connecting...".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5YkkSy-HLbs

There is *nothing* in the video to suggest that the iPhone made a call.

Truphone's app has only ever been seen to work on a phone with a built-in SIP stack and UA, such as the Nokia E series. If you look at the contents of their application settings file, you can extract a username and password and use Truphone on your PC with a softphone (despite their claims that this isn't possible).

Faked... is correct. There is absolutely no evidence. Just a person stating that "this is a demo of...". I hope for the guys in the video that they didn't fake it though, because if anyone invests in Truphone based on their claims it could go poorly for them later.

by Tim, Both Barrels Communications, PR to Truphone

For the benefit of El Reg readers: Truphone's demonstration took place at DEMOfall 07 in San Diego (see www.demo.com). All demonstrations, by all of the nearly-70 companies there, are LIVE and REAL. Faked demonstrations are not tolerated - not by the organisers, not by the 270 VCs and not by the 80-odd invited journalists that attend. 'Live' is the essence of the event.

The N80 demonstration was also entirely genuine. Truphone doesn't "do" fake anything. Truphone for the vanilla N80 was never made available because of a persistent bug that prevented signing of the software by Symbian. A video was posted at the time of an interview with Truphone's CEO to explain why the N80 software hadn't become available as anticipated.

Yes, Truphone has developed a SIP stack for the iPhone, because like the N80 it doesn't come with one.

The video for the iPhone demo was, incidentally, shot by VoIP uber-blogger Andy Abramson of VoIPWatch - http://andyabramson.blogs.com/ - not by Truphone.

From this point onwards I am not writing on behalf of Truphone: isn't it just typical that people who make ill-informed, negative and verging-on-the-defamatory (fibs?) comments like that never quite summon the courage to identify themselves? People like you are ruining valued news sites like El Reg for its genuine readers with your anonymous drivel.

Tim - then why were so many requests for more demos, to, for example, Truphone's speaking clock, or the line that reads your own number back to you never granted?

I'm was giving my opinion on what I saw - which is all that Truphone has been prepared to show. That's in no way defamatory. I know the S60/3rd ed UI well enough to know what I saw, and it wasn't a VoIP call on the N80 video.

Just how do they *know* how many DVD players are hacked to multi-region, anyhow?

...but I had to post anonymously to ensure that it remained personal opinion. It's not a lack of courage, trust me.

"...consider how much of the general population have bothered to make their DVD players multi-region. It may be easy for El Reg readers, but the majority of users just don't bother, and live with the manufacturer-imposed restrictions on their hardware"

I don't know about the UK and USA, but in OZ it's been years since region-locked DVD players were sold. In fact you'd have to try very hard to *find* one - and it's not just the Taiwanese/Chinese knockoffs: Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic, etc... (I own both a Panasonic and a Pioneer DVR - no region settings on either, both bought off-the-shelf at a Hi-Fi store).

There seems to be a severe lack of mac fanboy comments on this thread, something I for one find strangely disconcerting. This is an article describing yet another iphone hack! surely these are infidels doing this hacking and they must be attacked.

Now please bear with me as i'm not a real mac boy but will never the less give it my best shot (someone has to fill in for Macboy)

Truphone = poophone how dare they hack a jobs product in this way, do they not understand that in doing this they are messing with job's unearthly 'innovation skills'

if god wanted us to fly he would have given us wings likewise if jobs had wanted us to be able to use Voip on our Iphones he would have preinstalled it? no?

All other phones are rubbish especially windows ones or anything microsoft as it was probably copied from job's homework anyway and pc's are rubbish other than Apple pc's which are of course brilliant.

please read Jobs autobiography 10:300 for further enlightenment.

Hope that was ok, I'm a nubbie so go easy

Tim - I like how you point out that "uber-blogger" Andy Abramson shot the video and not Truphone. Andy is employed by Truphone as a PR consultant(http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2007/07/truphone-win-ov.html), which makes the video a Truphone video...not independent as you suggest.

Furthermore using Abramson's blog to suggest it is 'independent' is more than a little misleading, but I guess it is money well spent on Mr Abramson's talents and reputation.

Fair play to Truphone though, a solution for the iPhone is a nice stunt albeit a frivolous one. It's a shame they can't focus on developing their solution for other platforms as number of devices they support is limited.