The ToyBox

Ricardo Bilton & Gloria Sin

How to turn your iPod Touch into an iPhone (without breaking the bank)

By | April 15, 2008, 1:15pm PDT

Summary: They might look the same, but word on the street says the iPhone is the real deal, while the iPod Touch is…an in-house phony. Ouch. Now that might not truly be the case, but there are plenty of iPod Touch users out there that would like to, you know, once in awhile make a phone call (and [...]

iPhone and iPod TouchThey might look the same, but word on the street says the iPhone is the real deal, while the iPod Touch is…an in-house phony.

Ouch.

Now that might not truly be the case, but there are plenty of iPod Touch users out there that would like to, you know, once in awhile make a phone call (and prove to their iPhone counterparts that, yes, in fact, they are the real deal). Worry no more: Lifehacker’s Adam Pash figured out how to make VoIP phone calls from your iPod touch (or iPhone) with a small freeware application called SIP-VoIP.

If you’re not afraid of voiding your warranty for the ultimate bragging rights (well, ahem, short of actually owning an iPhone), it takes three simple steps: “Jailbreaking” or unlocking your iPod Touch, installing SIP-VoIP, and setting the whole thing up to make and receive calls.

If that sounds like a great way to spend a weekend, and you don’t mind signing up for things on the Internet, read on for a walk-through with pictures…

Feature: Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone (Lifehacker)

...and then tell us what happened (or why you think the whole thing is a convoluted sham).

If I had an iPod touch, I’d give it a go, but my iPod nano doesn’t look like it’d be very welcoming of such modification. (Pity!)

Which begs this question for iPhone and iPod Touch users: Was the ability to place calls a dealbreaker in choosing between these two devices? Tell us your story in TalkBack.

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Andrew J. Nusca is editor of ZDNet and SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

Follow him on Twitter.

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You still need to buy hardware
Michael Kelly 15th Apr 2008
An iPod doesn't come with a mic, so you have to buy one of their hacked mics. And anyway I'd want to be able to use a bluetooth headset before I'd consider doing this.
I own a 16GB iPod touch and I got it free from a Vendor by helping them out with some references and beta test programs. I had no interest really in the iPhone but wanted an MP3 player. While I can see the convenience of having it all wrapped into one I still like my phone to be a phone and an MP3 player to be an MP3 player. Maybe I am a bit "old school" but I find that cell providers and cell phone manufacturers seem to put way more emphasis on the other features of the phone and rarely if ever talk about its ability to make calls. After all its a friggen phone.
0 Votes
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...when you only need one?

I'm still quite happy with my 3-year-old 6265. The interface is a bit slow yeah, but having a good phone + mp3 player + 2mp camera + web browser + etc etc in a single package without having to worry about 3 or more devices, what's not to like about that? Especially since it fits in my pocket and can go with me all the time, unlike the oversized iPhone.

Having said that, the touch's big screen and slim profile looks attractive as a super-portable movie player though. If I could hack it to use voip then so much the better!
The iPod Touch can record/digitize voice? That's a new one on me..
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I'm quite happy with my iPod Touch, but...
Jeff Dickey 15th Aug 2009
... there is one and only one reason I bought it rather than an iPhone
3G.

Our "beloved" government-linked, exclusive iPhone telco, SingTel.

Had I been able to get a warranty-blessed (non-jailbroken) iPhone
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From chatting with other folks offline and on, I'm quite sure that there
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whether their local monopoly provider is government-linked or not.
It's not so much a matter of politics (most places) as it is of choice, or
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So long as Apple continue to make exclusive deals with whoever's
willing to give them the most cash (from whatever funding source),
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will not buy the device. And that's a shame; it obviously beats the
stuffing out of my Trabant phone (er, Motorola Z9).
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