I get a $185 monthly bill from AT&T for data & voice usage on the two iPhones my wife and I use.
I miss Cricket.
I have no complaints about the quality of service I receive from AT&T. But, since I work from my home office, I use my Google Voice account to send and receive free calls, voicemails and text messages. Naturally, I learned I could do this on my iPhone as well with a variety of apps. This also means if I could obtain a data only plan for, say, $35 per phone. Allowing me to eliminate my AT&T plan and save $115 a month!
So; I’ve created a series of comparison charts to identify the best possible alternative to the plans and apps major carriers are currently offering.
Note: Google Voice does not currently support picture messaging (including sending recorded videos).
Apps
“NT” means not tested. “X” means they are a supported feature. Lastly, this was tested with a Google Voice number associated with a Google Apps account as well as with a GMail associated account.
App | Push Notifications for SMS | Push Notifications for Calls | Badge Notifications | User Interface | Call Quality Over Wifi | Call Quality Over Data | Support For Multiple Accounts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NT | NT | X | 10/10 | N/A | N/A | ||
X | 5/10 | ? | ? | NT | |||
X | X | 1/10 | NT | NT | NT | ||
Talkatone | X | X | X | 8/10 | 8/10 | X | |
X | 8/10 | N/A | N/A | NT | |||
GV Mobile + | X | X | 10/10 | N/A | N/A | NT |
Notes
Carriers
In my opinion, Talkatone is the champion because it offers functioning VoiP, messaging and a variety of settings so it can compete with the native iPhone apps. As I mentioned though, it has it’s weaknesses, but considering the $100+ a month savings: I can live with it for now.
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