would an ipad multi-task function eliminate cell phone need?

[chstr]

here me out...

for those of us who aren't corporate slaves or 13 year old girls and don't need to be on a cell phone 16 hours per day, would the ability to run background apps eliminate the need for a cell phone? assuming you had data coverage everywhere you went, which might be a slight hassle but think of the possibility?


you run skype which can send and receive calls from anywhere for a low price, and you just have to make sure it is running in the background and your all set right?

 

[Axl Rose]

exactly what im considering....just waiting for a jailbreak on an ipad, along with a native voip app for the iPad

 

[gwynne]

for those of us who aren't corporate slaves or 13 year old girls and don't need to be on a cell phone 16 hours per day

Wow, way to endear yourself to the people you want to answer your question.

The answer to your question is "Yes, if you don't mind lugging around a 1.5lb cellphone that is roughly the size of a sheet of letter-sized paper."

 

[MisterMe]

here me out...

for those of us who aren't corporate slaves or 13 year old girls and don't need to be on a cell phone 16 hours per day, would the ability to run background apps eliminate the need for a cell phone? assuming you had data coverage everywhere you went, which might be a slight hassle but think of the possibility?

....

Just what everyone needs--a 1.5 pound telephone handset that is the size of a magazine. Best of all, no one would ever accuse you of trying to impress 13 year old girls.

 

[chstr]

The answer to your question is "Yes, if you don't mind lugging around a 1.5lb cellphone that is roughly the size of a sheet of letter-sized paper."

well that's just it, I already lug a 15" macbook pro and an iphone around so the iPad would be a breeze in comparison

 

[Chupa Chupa]

How does multi-tasking let me put an iPad in my pocket?

 

[GadgetX]

How does multi-tasking let me put an iPad in my pocket?

No one ever said that. You know some people carry bags with them where ever they go so the iPad would not be that bad to carry around.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

No one ever said that. You know some people carry bags with them where ever they go so the iPad would not be that bad to carry around.

Yeah, but most pocketbooks are too small for an iPad too.

 

[AJsAWiz]

Nah, I'd still need my iPhone

 

[[DL]]

Of course not. It can't fit in your pocket...

 

[blackNBUK]

I just don't understand this suggestion. There are loads of places where I want to have a phone with me but don't want something the size of an iPad. Are you really going to take an iPad to a pub or bar?

 

[Sleazy E]

i'm thinking no

 

[FlashHead]

In a way, I already do this with my iPod Touch.

When I'm out of the country, my wife calls my Skype-In number, leaves a message, which sends an alert to my .mac (.me) mail address, I instantly hear the push notification from iPod Touch, I call her back via Skype. I will, from here on out, carry my iPad to work instead in a bag, instead of my MacBook Pro (I'm a director, so my work is in a studio or a theater). It will be excellent to accomplish all of this from the same device.

If I were on the phone all day, this of course would be tedious and impractical. I suspect there are many people, like myself, who don't use the cell phone features very often. So, this option works well for me as is, and would only be improved if Skype could run in the background, and I could directly answer the call, like when I have it open on my computer.

 

[marlys]

Tired of the haters....

here me out...

for those of us who aren't corporate slaves or 13 year old girls and don't need to be on a cell phone 16 hours per day, would the ability to run background apps eliminate the need for a cell phone? assuming you had data coverage everywhere you went, which might be a slight hassle but think of the possibility?


you run skype which can send and receive calls from anywhere for a low price, and you just have to make sure it is running in the background and your all set right?

This is exactly what I'll be looking to do. I don't need to be gabbing on the phone while I'm driving or grocery shopping -- if someone calls while you're at the bar, do you really want to answer? All these people with exotic usage scenarios and this dumb idea that people asking about this are going to put an iPad up to their heads need to find something more productive to comment on.

90%+ of the calls I take while I'm sitting down at my desk at work, at my desk at home, or on the couch. A pair of iPhone-style microphone headphones (not a bluetooth fan) leading into a shoulder bag would work for almost all of rest of the times that I actually use my phone. And most of my conversations are upwards of 20-30 minutes. Why would anyone want to spend $3 for that conversation if you have an unmetered, always-on data connection that can be conveniently linked to a telephone number?

I'm looking forward to potential iPad phone usage and the prospect of using it as a stereo / GPS console in the area where my never-used ashtray and rarely-used FM radio are located in the car. Hopefully these topics (and other novel uses) will be able to be explored on this forum without a fusillade of rage being launched everytime someone wants to do something apart from browse a webpage or read an iBook on their damn iPad.

 

[anthonymoody]

A BT headset, particularly if it works with some type of voice activation linked to the Skype app (which I guess is TBD though I'm not overly optimistic in this regard) would help a great deal so that you wouldn't have to pull out the iPad to actually dial. And in any case you could receive calls without pulling out the iPad.

But . . . unless you're a VERY light mobile-calling user this seems to be an awfully niche-y thing to do.

 

[avaloncourt]

There's one technical issue that's being overlooked. Even if you were using Skype multitasked or not, the iPad just like the Touch will sleep the wireless connection when the device itself sleeps and reconnect at wake.

That would eliminate the ability to receive any calls during the sleep. If you force a no-sleep that will significantly affect your battery life. Add a Bluetooth connection on top of that and there will be even more drain.

When the iPhone came out people complained about battery life and Apple's response was that cellular, wifi and Bluetooth would all have a direct impact and that was not in the original calculation of battery life. Companies always go for best-case statements. The 10 hour figure for the iPad is surely a best-case number with 3G, wifi and Bluetooth all subtracting from that.

If multitasking ever becomes a reality then that would also negatively affect the battery life as well.

 

[chstr]

There's one technical issue that's being overlooked. Even if you were using Skype multitasked or not, the iPad just like the Touch will sleep the wireless connection when the device itself sleeps and reconnect at wake.

That would eliminate the ability to receive any calls during the sleep. If you force a no-sleep that will significantly affect your battery life. Add a Bluetooth connection on top of that and there will be even more drain.

When the iPhone came out people complained about battery life and Apple's response was that cellular, wifi and Bluetooth would all have a direct impact and that was not in the original calculation of battery life. Companies always go for best-case statements. The 10 hour figure for the iPad is surely a best-case number with 3G, wifi and Bluetooth all subtracting from that.

If multitasking ever becomes a reality then that would also negatively affect the battery life as well.

keep it plugged in?

 

[ciaran00]

No. My opinion is the reason why is because skype sucks ass (and they're a serious rip off).

Many of us hoping and praying that some day somebody provides a frickin alternative.

 

[GermanSuplex]

In a word, no.

 

[avaloncourt]

keep it plugged in?

You would need to keep it plugged in and set it to never sleep to keep the connection active. If you're keeping it plugged in in then that rather defeats the purpose of a mobile device. Without multitasking you'd be better off just having a notebook plugged in and running skype in the background.

If it ends up being a stationary device then you might as well get a SIP box and use CallCentric. You'd get to use regular phones and it wouldn't tie up any computer at all. I pay CallCentric $2.95 a month for unlimited inbound calling with an actual phone number. My PAP2T runs all the phones in the house and I also set several Google Voice numbers to point to it.

 

[blackNBUK]

This is exactly what I'll be looking to do. I don't need to be gabbing on the phone while I'm driving or grocery shopping -- if someone calls while you're at the bar, do you really want to answer? All these people with exotic usage scenarios and this dumb idea that people asking about this are going to put an iPad up to their heads need to find something more productive to comment on.

90%+ of the calls I take while I'm sitting down at my desk at work, at my desk at home, or on the couch. A pair of iPhone-style microphone headphones (not a bluetooth fan) leading into a shoulder bag would work for almost all of rest of the times that I actually use my phone. And most of my conversations are upwards of 20-30 minutes. Why would anyone want to spend $3 for that conversation if you have an unmetered, always-on data connection that can be conveniently linked to a telephone number?

I guess you must use a mobile in a very different way to the way I do. I very rarely hold long conversations on my mobile phone; most of those I have on a landline. If a few problems are fixed, VOIP on the iPad could definitely be a good replacement for a landline.

However my mobile use is different, I'll often use it to just help organise meeting people. I wouldn't want to call someone to catch up in a bar but I definitely would want to know if my friends are running late or if they want to meet somewhere different. For this to work effectively my mobile has to be something I can carry pretty much anywhere.

I guess you could argue whether the fact that mobiles let you organise on-the-fly is a good thing or not, however it is definitely the way that a lot of people use their phones.

 

[marlys]

I guess you must use a mobile in a very different way to the way I do. I very rarely hold long conversations on my mobile phone; most of those I have on a landline. If a few problems are fixed, VOIP on the iPad could definitely be a good replacement for a landline.

However my mobile use is different, I'll often use it to just help organise meeting people. I wouldn't want to call someone to catch up in a bar but I definitely would want to know if my friends are running late or if they want to meet somewhere different. For this to work effectively my mobile has to be something I can carry pretty much anywhere.

I guess you could argue whether the fact that mobiles let you organise on-the-fly is a good thing or not, however it is definitely the way that a lot of people use their phones.

I'm an old fogey at 28

 

[frunkis54]

No. My opinion is the reason why is because skype sucks ass (and they're a serious rip off).

Many of us hoping and praying that some day somebody provides a frickin alternative.

like vonage? thats already available for the iphone

 

[Ping Guo]

In a way, I already do this with my iPod Touch.

When I'm out of the country, my wife calls my Skype-In number, leaves a message, which sends an alert to my .mac (.me) mail address, I instantly hear the push notification from iPod Touch, I call her back via Skype. I will, from here on out, carry my iPad to work instead in a bag, instead of my MacBook Pro (I'm a director, so my work is in a studio or a theater). It will be excellent to accomplish all of this from the same device.

OK, but with a Touch you'd need wifi to get that push notification and call your wife on Skype... what do you do when you're away from a hotspot? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to buy a local SIM card and setup Skype to forward calls to a mobile phone while you're in country? That's what I do with my iPhone.

 

[ciaran00]

like vonage? thats already available for the iphone

Cool, I did not know. Thanks for the info!
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...mited_intl_calling_for_iphone_blackberry.html