Where is my iPhone / iPad ?!? - iLocalis app review

A few months ago, apple has release for free the service “Find my iPhone” which up until that time was provided only for paid users of “Mobile Me”. To my and your sorrow, we are talking about a pathetic service which I would not recommend relaying on to locate your lost devices. The control features are very basic and when it comes to Israel, the map is limited to satellite view only without street information and it’s only a fraction of what your iPhone and iPad can allow you to do.

So, like many other cases, a more comprehensive and quality service can be found in Cydia if you’ve jail broken your device… the app iLocalis offers a wide verity of features for tracking and remote control which you can otherwise only dream on.

The service is paid subscription based:

• Annual basic service 5 euro
• 15 euro for an advance package
• 50 euro for a family package of up to 5 devices

Advanced remote
control features

Let’s say the device is lost / stolen:

• Similar to “find my iPhone” services, you can remote lock / create a popup message / remote wipe and of course see your device on the map.
• You can activate a load alarm sound to help track the device
• With the help of Google maps, you can get exact driving instructions from your location to the device location.
• You can command your device from the site or by SMS message to update its location and even call you at any number so you can listen in to the surroundings of the device.
• You can get an audio recording from the phone which will be secretly recorded and sent to your email.
• You can get a steal picture taken from the front / back camera at your choice without the user’s knowledge that will help you id the person using your phone.

The features may also be useful on a daily basis:

• If you have other friends that subscribe to the service, you can get alerts when they are near by (assuming you both approve it).
• If you’ve left your phone at home, you can login to the site and remotely instruct it to direct all incoming calls to a number of your choice (for example the office number or a friend you happen to hang out with).
• You can send remote sms from your phone using the site
• You can get you location history up to 3 months back and export in various formats (where was I on Monday last week at…).
• You can define alert zones which when you enter / exist from a certain action would be performed (text message / email will be sent, calls will be redirected etc.). 

Ops... I am at the office and i found out the phone is back home!
- redirect incoming calls using the site remote control

If my phone (or I) happen to be in this area, something must be wrong! alert the cops!
(alert zones example)

The app can be downloaded using Cydia and after a trial period of 10 days you’ll have to pay for a package of your choice. For additional information please check out the site and forum at http://www.ilocalis.com/

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Let's talk free #5 Acrobits - One app to rule them all (your numbers)

If you've been following this guide from the beginning, you are likely to have several phone numbers on your name at this point:

• The basic free number in the USA by Whistle phone or an equivalent service of some kind
• An Israeli number provided by the Spikko service
• A Google Voice with advanced features

Why now? And you may very well sign up for other similar services which will entitle you for other numbers in more countries.

In order to manage all these numbers and services you need an advanced quality app and Acrobits has 2 apps to offer you: 

• Softphone (6.99$) – for standard use
• Groundwire (9.99$) – for advanced professional use.

Which app should you get?

Softphone's major features include-

• Management of multiple services and accounts
• Google Voice support
• Making outgoing call / receiving incoming calls
• The ability to record a conversation!
• Support of iOS 4 standard background work
• The ability to make calls over 3G (with costs according to the data package you purchased)
• Direct access to your address book (no need to manage separate with duplications)
• Ability to set ringtones
• Favorites and quick dial mangment
• Dialing rules (number rewriting, explained later)

 Groundwire's major features include-

• All the features in SoftPhone
• Call transfer (after you get a call you may transfer it to another party)
• Call waiting
• Conference call (ability to connect / remove individuals from the call)
• Advanced voice mail management

On the company site you can check the video tutorials and written guides for the details of the service. I suppose most people can definitely settle for the SoftPhone version and while the Groundwire is more for professional people whose work has a strong emphasis on phone communication (team work, collaboration, corporate needs etc.).

Configuration of service provides (numbers) in the app

Both apps allow configuration of a variety of service provides that have been tightly integrated in the app as well as adding any standard SIP provide according to generic configuration assuming you have all the relevant parameters to input.



Choose your SIP provider / add one that's not on the list

Configuring Whistle Phone

Whistle Phone has not been integrated in the service providers list so we'll select the Generic SIP   

• Title – the service provider name as it will appear on your providers menu (you may assign whatever name you like).
• User name – your whistle phone assigned phone number
• Password – your password
• Domain – Proxy.whistlephone.com

Whistle Phone SIP definition

Once you've saved the configuration, go back to the service details and make sure incoming calls is set to "One with Push" so you will get an immediate notification when someone calls you even when the app is closed.

Now, go back to the keypad screen, choose whistle service in the top left corner of your screen and make sure it's green (indicates a connection was successful).

Successful configuration indicator

Configuring Spikko service

Spikko has been integrated directly with the app so the definition will be a bit different:

• Title – the service provider name as it will appear on your providers menu (you may assign whatever name you like).
• Username – type the user you signed up to Spikko with
• Password – your password

Spikko SIP configuration

That’s it, Push should automatically be enabled.

Configuring Google Voice

In order to avoid the complexity of using two separate apps, one for making outgoing calls and another to take incoming calls, you are well advised to setup Google Voice services in the app.

• Title – the service provider name as it will appear on your providers menu (you may assign whatever name you like).
• Username – the email address used for connecting with the Google voice service
• Password – your password
• Callback phone name – the name of the number from which you want to make outgoing calls as you wrote it in your Google Voice settings.
• According to the scenario described here, this would be the name you gave your Whistle phone number in your Google Voice numbers setup.

Google Voice configuration

Once you've completed the Google voice configuration, you'll have a new provider in your menu with which you can make outgoing calls to any number in the USA. The service will initiate a call back which will transfer your call to the number you listed as your callback number (your Whistle phone in this case) and this way you won't be bothered with listening to the ad before you call is connected.

Dial rules management (number rewriting)

The app allows your quickly and easily switch between service providers you've configured and their different phone numbers, but it also makes it very easy to forget to set the right service provider and accidently initiate an outgoing call from the wrong number (what may lead to waste of valuable calling minutes if for example you called a USA number from your Spikko service and not your Google voice / Whistle services). In order to avoid such cases or at least reduce the risk you can define dial rules.

For example

• All calls with over 9 digit in the number that do not start with zero – are immediately suspected as USA number and should be dialed using Google Voice.
• All numbers starting with 0039 should be made using some sort of Italian SIP provider (still looking for a good free one)

Try to manage your own rules based on the numbers and locations you call as well as the service providers you've signed-up with.

You can watch this demo by Acrobits on how to connect with Google Voice and manage basic dial rules.

Please note

• Remember to check the costs that may be involved with making VOIP calls over a 3G network before you make any call (if you have a limit on your data package be sure to check your status every once in a while).
• Manage your dial rules in order to avoid initiating a call using the wrong service provider.

For full and fair disclosure, Acrobits provided me with promo codes in support of this review.

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Let’s talk free - #4 Google Voice sign-up guide (not only) in the USA

Now that you are familiar with Google Voice services comes the sign-up guide,

what will you need?

• Get an active American phone number
• Connect for initial sign-up while camouflaged as you are located in the USA.
• Sign-up
• Install relevant applications for using the service (or you can settle for the web access provided by Google).

Getting a USA phone number

In order to activate the service you will need an active American phone number which you can validate by getting an incoming call and dialing a code to verify you are indeed the owner of that line.

If you don't already have an American phone number – follow the instructions on this post for you free number or you can sign-up to any number of SIP services that provide a phone number such as SIP gate (but I do recommend the options described on my post as the simplest way to get it done).

Getting access to Google Voice sign-up

If you are located in the USA – you can skip this part and go directly to this address http://www.google.com/voice.

Otherwise you'll need to gain access using a proxy server to a VPN service

Camouflaged Browsing

I highly recommend ibVPN – a company offering an easy service of "camouflaged browsing" using various proxy servers around the world including the united states. This is a paid service however the prices are reasonable and the support service is very friendly, you can find detailed guides on how to connect with various devices and most important – you'll have a clear address to verify you are not messing up with unwanted unknown people with issues concerning information security on your computer. You can read about their service in more detail in the following post.

The is a free alternative, Hotspot Shield who promises to allow you camouflaged browsing in return for displaying ads on the pages you browse too. Installing this alternative is slightly more complicated and if truth be told, it does not inspire a lot of confidence with all the alerts I got during the process… try it out at your own risk (like everything else actually…).

Eventually, when you go to the address http://www.google.com/voicewith camouflaged browsing as if you are in the US, you'll be allowed to sign-up for the service.

Signing-up to Google Voice

Assuming the site recognizes your browsing as if it's coming from the United States, you'll immediately be taken to the first stage of the signup process:

• Choosing your new Google Voice phone number

 

Find an available number by area code / zip code and a combination of letters and numbers

 

Pages through and select your number

 

• Type in your pin code (for use with the voice mail and as secondary identification)

Type a 4 digit code

• Type in your existing American phone number (the one mentioned about, your Whistle phone or other), go through the validation process (Google voice will dial your number and ask you to enter the validation code presented on your screen in your phone)

Type in your existing American number from stage 1

Click "Call now", wait for an incoming call and enter the validation code on your phone

Once you've completed this process you can disconnect the proxy used for the camouflaged browsing and work directly with the Google voice site without having to camouflage your origin (unless you'll want to change your Google voice number in the future).

At this stage you can add other American numbers you may have to the service and control which one will ring and when.

Using Google Voice services

If you are using Google Talk you can also transfer calls to that account and manage the whole thing from your computer using the web services of Google Voice.

iPhone / iPad / iPod users have several alternatives:

The free (most unfriendly) solution

• Get incoming calls
• Using the Whistle phone app you should already have.
• You can also use Fring or any other SIP phone app you may have that can work with SIP service that provides a number.
• Sending and receiving text messages, managing your voice mail, checking call history and setup can all be done by directly accessing www.google.come\voice from your mobile device.
• Making outgoing calls – you'll need to switch to the "old version" of the Google voice web site using the link at the bottom of the page.
• Once your type in the number to call and selecting the Whistle phone number – you will be getting a call back which will ring on your Whistle phone (You'll get an instant push if you've set it up), once you answer – the call will ring for the number you typed and you will be connected.

New Google Voice web app

Old Google Voice web app,
allows making outgoing calls using callback feature

A small price, a bit more friendly solution

• Getting incoming calls – same as above
• Everything else (sending and receiving text messages, voice mail management, call history and setup) can be achieved using GV mobile + (2.99$).

GV Mobile +

The advantage of GV Mobile + is with easier outgoing call interface to get your call back, you'll get the transcript of your voice mails and the recordings inside the app as well as the call history for offline access – even if you are not connected to the internet. The down side is that you'll have to disable use of multiple accounts in Google if you have it since it interferes with the app operation for some reason.

(I've seen some indications that Google may release a native app which may serve as an attractive alternative and I'll post a note of that as soon as I have more information).

 

The best solution

Making outgoing calls from one app, getting calls in another app is most unfriendly… in order to achieve both tasks from the same app, I've found 2 very well executed, friendly solutions by Acrobits that offers 2 relevant apps:

• Softphone (6.99$)
• Groundwire (9.99$)

Soon...

A detailed review will be available in a future post…

 

 

 

Did you give this guide a try? Was it clear? Did you make it? – Please share your story in the comments!

Question? Problem? Share in the comments as well so I'll be able to update the guide…

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Internet with no boundaries – Camouflaged browsing

The internet is the essence of the phrase "Small world", it breaks down boundaries, connects people, and allows access to all sorts of content and media items…

But…

For some reasons, there's discrimination – content and services are sometimes limited to a certain geographical area and blocked to users in other areas.

In order to break such barriers there's and option to camouflage the location from which we are connected, making the service provider on the other side believe we are in the allowed area. By connecting to a VPN type service and using a proxy (connecting) server we can achieve the desired results.

Ibvpn – Invisible Browsing VPN service

The company provides this service for a fee which allows access to proxy servers in several locations in the world (Unites states, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Ireland, and Germany). For the purpose of this guide, let's assume we wish to connect to a service in the United States.

Just as the homepage of their site comes up, we are welcomed with big banner showing the location from which we browse as identified by the network (according to the IP address we get from our internet connection provider) – scary, no?

My location is identified as Tel Aviv

In the site you can find a number of tutorials on how to connect with iPhone / iPad, a number of Windows versions or mac. In this guide, you'll find the install process as I did it on my Windows 7 PC (for the purpose of the install you may need to connect your computer directly to the modem and skip the router, you may have to temporarily disable your firewall or antivirus protections).

Installing ibvpn on Windows 7

After you've purchased your service package (you can choose a 1/3/6 months packages for various prices):

• Go to your "Network and sharing center" from your "Start" menu

• Select "Setup a new connection or network"

• Select "Connect to workplace"

• Select "Use my internet connection (VPN)"

• Type the address of the proxy server of your choice and give the connection a name
• In the USA there is a number of available proxy servers, you are advised to check each one in order to find which gives you the best connection speed, it's possible you'll get different speeds depending on the time of day.

• Type in your user and password, click connect.

• Once the connection process is done, you can see the indication you are connected to the VPN next to your internet connection (from your tray).

Once the process is done and you are connected, if you go back to the homepage of the company, you'll see that the location from which you are connected is now identified as from the USA with a different IP address than the one you actually use.

My new location is identified as Bloomington, USA

Please note

• Camouflaged browsing means routing all your communication through a proxy server. This means performance rate (connection speed) may be significantly reduced due to latency (especially if you browse sites that are distant from the proxy server location).
• You are well advised to sample all the available proxy addresses offered in different time of the day.
• Don't hesitate to open a service request with the company friendly support team.

In the following posts I will tell you about some of the services you can benefit while surfing under camouflage which were previously only relevant to users from the USA.

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Let's talk free - #3 Introduction to Google Voice (link)

I am sorry but I would feel a bit silly writing an introduction to Google Voice in English, so this post will be a bit different while I take the time to make the introduction in the Hebrew part of the site...

Please check this link for the introduction and follow-up on the next post - a guide to sign-up for Google Voice - not exclusive to American people!

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