This got me thinking of getting a ‘celebrity’ voice greeting for my AT&T mobile voicemail mailbox. So, last April I decided to throw caution to the wind and pay a whopping $50 to hire Jon St. John in his voice for a 30 seconds worth audio. There’s a disclaimer on his site that it’s for ‘private use only’ and I feel that my persona voicemail greeting is private, since you’d have to know my phone number.

Jon was really great to work with, and was quick to deliver the audio. I took the audio and thanks to a few tricks that I’ll document sometime, was able to get the file, in high quality, back into the AT&T voicemail system.

Hit requires a JailBroken iPhone, the iFile app from Cydia or similar way to access file system, a conversion of the delivered audio to .amr and a visit to: /var/mobile/Library/Voicemail

The idea being you could post the Google Voice number anywhere. You can accept or decline audio phone calls however you see fit and convert any audio phone call you want to make a FaceTime video call seamlessly with the press of a button.

Many popular tech people on Twitter publish their phone number. Having that number be a Google Voice phone number would allow you to have multiple phones and allow ‘protected’ FaceTime calling since they’ always start as audio calls, you can also have call forwarding and other controls.

Another great thing about Google Voice.

A Simple Graphic of Using a Google Voice Number
and FaceTime Calling

I also found online a DeviceKnit Blog article about FaceTime over 3G (aka FaceTime without WiFi). This requires a Tethering Plan from AT&T and a laptop.  DeviceKnit stated the tethering plan would be an extra $15 a month. What what I saw, it would be more for me and I’d have to worry about Data Usage.

Since the iPhone 4 Jailbreak isn’t public and I don’t have it, I looked for a simpler solution using my Unlimited iPhone Data plan. I found it in my trusty Jailbroken iPhone 3GS, using MyWi.

I succeeded and have made 4+ successful FaceTime calls from my iPhone 4 (Airplane mode with WiFi on), over my iPhone 3GS WiFi (via MyWi) and out into the Internet via my AT&T 3G.

What’s important here is that SMS isn’t a factor on the iPhone 4 once you have done the initial FaceTime registration.  AddictiveTips has a post talking about SMS and FaceTime. My findings seem to conflict with what was reported there.

Some other thoughts:

• If everyone starts doing this, likely AT&T will find resources they never knew they had to hunt down the abusers.
• Audio and Video was poor
• I’m happy to test this out with a member of press, but not just anyone since you could be AT&T and I don’t want to get cancelled!

Here was my setup

• iPhone 4 -Unit A (Connections: Carrier 3G & Home WiFi)
• iPhone 4 – Unit B (Connection: WiFi only to iPhone 3GS) Airplane mode w/ WiFi on.
• iPhone 3GS JailBroken ( Connections: Carrier 3G & WiFi via MyWi
• MicroSIM adapter (Check Craigslist too!)

I went to the AT&T store and got a new MicroSIM my iPhone 4 – Unit B (I kept getting “No SIM” message, unrelated to this experiment).

After confirming new MicroSIM works, I put the iPhone 4 into Airplane mode. I put the active MicroSIM in my 3GS with MicroSIM adapter.

I took original MicroSIM and put it in my iPhone 4. This SIM was disable by the carrier. It couldn’t send SMS. Turned WiFi on.

I activated MyWi on the 3GS. Connected the iPhone 4 to the MyWi peer-to-peer WiFi connection.

I placed a test call from iPhone 4 – Unit A to iPhone 4 – Unit B. Success!

I also later have a quick FaceTime call with a very nice, random person, from Twitter who was in a Florida Airport via WiFi, about to board for a return trip to Chicago. Connection was poor as stated.

To me, my experiment proves:

1. iPhone 4 – Unit B, which originated FaceTime call, in Airplane mode, with WiFi on, connected to 3GS running MyWi : Doesn’t send a SMS over carrier data. Thus isn’t a SMS, proper. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s like an SMS, bit it’s NOT a SMS going over carrier data since my SIM is deactivated.

2. I’d expect to see an iPod Touch with a camera in the future since FaceTime isn’t designed to rely on SMS over carrier data for every connection.
I’ll add some photos and maybe a video later, if people want.

Hint:

If you have what it takes, (literally, you need to have all that stuff, MicroSIM adapter, JB iPhone 3G or 3GS, a deactivated extra MicroSIM from AT&T), you may find that once your IP changes you may have FaceTime call errors. I resolved by turning off the iPhone 4. Installing the known good MicroSIM, booted up, got carrier data, and then entered Airplane mode. Swapped SIMs and I was back in business.

I’m happy to answer reasonable questions.

This is for Jailbreakers only, since Apple choose to reject it.

Yet another great reason to Jailbreak. It’s easy!

Get Wi-Fi Sync

He had rather cumbersome directions to get to the app in Cydia. It got me thinking that there must be a better way.

Searching online didn’t reveal anything. A tweet and email to Saurik, aka Jay Freeman, hasn’t been answered and may never.

My research lead me to the solution.

It should look familiar to any developers. I share so anyone, bloggers, developers can add in-Cydia app links onto their websites to help users.

cydia://package/com.ghughes.wifisync

For your app, just grab your package ID (see third photo), and put it after package/

Cheers

Update: 3/11/11 – Just noticed this isn’t working with my current version of Cydia 1.0.3366-1. humm..

Update: 3/29/11 – Cydia 1.1.1 released today corrects the bug that removed the ability for direct package / app links into Cydia.

The reason I’m posting thus online is to point out that it’s really good to see some CEOs still care and take the time to talk to customers. I currently have an iPhone but I’ve been a happy Palm customer before and I hope to be again when a Palm device hits AT&T.

One last note, I don’t think we should all start emailing CEOs without a little due diligence, less the onslaught become quickly overwhelming. I’m sure a flaming email would have been trashed. I know at my last job with a major Financial Services company, the CEO never responded to the general public. His emails were screened by the PR team and stopped there.

Update: 3/27/2010 Gizmodo picked up this story and really trashed Jon and Palm. I think they are WAY off base with their position missing my point.

Palm might be down, but they aren’t out.

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Subject: Re: Fan-made Pre ad gets the point, why can’t Palm? (video) – Engadget
From: Jon Rubinstein
In-Reply-To: <70E19236-5778-434E-A7CF-FFBC1F74A4DD@methodicjon.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:01:01 -0700
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References: <8FF2CA6F-A504-478B-B976-BE24ED9EAA8D@methodicjon.com> <70E19236-5778-434E-A7CF-FFBC1F74A4DD@methodicjon.com>
To: Jon
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1077)

I sometime respond too

You should buy a Pre plus because it is the best smartphone on the =
market. Try it, you’ll like it!!!!

thanks for forwarding,

jon

On Mar 26, 2010, at 4:20 AM, Jon wrote:

> If Steve Jobs responds to people, I figured I’d try this.
>=20
> Wanted you to see this. I might have bought a Pre had your commercials =
=20
> looked like this.
>=20
> Suggest you chat your Marketing / PR team.
>=20
>=20
> Cheers,
>=20
> -Jon
>=20
>=20
>> =

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/26/fan-made-pre-ad-gets-the-point-why-cant-palm-video/