Tzah 2.0

iphonetouch.blorge has recently published a story from Arnold Zafra about top 40 best iPhone optimized web sites. Our own iphone.jajah.com is one of the top 40 web sites!  The site is amongst a respectable list of other iphone optimized sites like Amazon, CBS News, Digg, Meebo, Google and Twitter.

Mr. Zafra found these sites to be “useful and highly iPhone optimized sites that will enhance your online iPhone experience”. JAJAH iphone’s dedicated web site, launched at December 2007, has aimed to fully optimize the device capabilities while maintaining a simple and easy user experience. Mr. Zafra story is a testimony for JAJAH efforts in providing a variety of mobile solutions to make low cost calls.

I can’t believe I didn’t mention it in my last post. Google Voice is really great but it looks to me like it’s more focused on getting incoming calls than placing outbound calls (even though they’re free for now). A Google Voice user has : making a callback from his on-line account, calling back people who left a voicemail or manually typing the desired number.

Let’s have a closer look. The first way is simple and intuitive. Google Voice on-line page is based on Google’s famous UI principles thus making it easy to make the call. However, it still requires going on-line with your computer which is somewhat limiting. I didn’t hear about a mobile web version for the service like JAJAH’s mobile web, but I’m sure Google is working on it right now. The second way to make calls  is to callback a person back from a voicemail but that’s more a by-product for the voicemail service than a “legitimate” way to place calls.

The third way is to call your Google Voice number, press 2 and then manually type the destination number . That’s a big problem. Most of the mobile calls we make are from the phone’s address book or call log. Typing the number requires memorizing the number and the entire process takes time. The solution is either to have a number mapped to the destination, like JAJAH Direct service, or install a mobile plug-in. A mobile plug-in can be installed on most phones today and use the phone’s capabilities. On smart phones devices like iPhone/iPod, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android, Mobile VoIP calls can made thus saving you the cost of local call to your operator. In addition, the applications can intercept outgoing calls and route them through Google Voice. The advantage here is that the user doesn’t have to learn new tricks to make calls. She’ll still dial like she used to and the application will make the decision how to route the call. On features phone, which are still the majority of phones today, a J2ME plug-in can be installed to make calls. The plug-in could interface with the phone’s address book, allowing the user to choose a contact to dial to rather than typing the number manually. My guess is that Google will soon launch applications for mobile phones.

Google’s latest revolution and the usual suspect

By now, the news of has spread all over the web. Some celebrates the new revolution from the world’s web seminary, while other raise the usual concerns about invading your privacy. To the skeptics, I can only say, common! Nobody’s forcing you to use it. Google’s power is incredible but there’re still alternatives out there. Besides, free services in exchange for some level of privacy invasion already exist and gain popularity. (, being the most obvious example, but there’re others). Moreover, we already deliberately provide so much private information about ourselves in Facebook, Twitter, windows messenger status and others that privacy claims about big brother monitoring seems somewhat archaic.

One number, many friends

However, Google Voice is facing other challenges before it become globally  available and gain widespread use. First of all, Google Voices should help its users to spread their new number with their friends, family and colleagues. Perhaps a variation of service could help in that. Another related problem is that the numbers given to users are still only US. Even if the service becomes global, the given number is always local to the user. So, if I get a US number and my friend live in Austria, it will still cost a lot of money to make the international call from Austria to Germany. Of course, this is a common problem with all international calls. However, if Google has ambitions to make their service ubiquitous, they’d need to find a solution to this issue. JAJAH Direct can provide such a solution and at low-cost rates.

I’m sorry, what did you say?

One of Google Voice prominent service is it’s voicemail transcripts. It’s a great service, if, Google can indeed make fully automated transcriptions. Personally, I don’t see that happening in the near future. Google’s Speech-to-text services are and . Both services are limited to recognizing specific words out of a pre-defines list like Joe’s Pizza, economics, Texas. At this point, it’s not possible to fully transcribe complete voice mails without making mistakes, asking the user to repeat some words or have human intervention. A partial solution might be to make an educated guess about the nature of the voicemail content. If Google could assume a particular voicemail is of specifi context (entertainment, sports, business), it could reduce the number of transcription mistakes to a minimum. Since Google already has vast knowledge about its users habits and interest areas, that seems to be taken care of. Also, let’s not forget that transcription service should be able to understand different accents, languages, oral mistakes made by the user’s themselves,  nick names, voice interference and more before it become accurate. I know of only one such device that does a similar task, but, it will be in production state only 142 years form now.

One last thing

In addition to the above , Google has to overcome huge operational and regulatory challenges. Call termination, VoIP-related fraud, IP call routing and hosting are just few of issues any valuable VoIP company has to deal with. I wonder how much Google Voice is ready to cope with these issues, especially if it wishes to become a global service provider like JAJAH.

Hi there! My name is Tzahi Efrati and I’m manager of mobile & tools development here at JAJAH. The mobile market has changed dramatically over the last years and continues to present new functionality every so often.

Over the last 6 month, two major events happened concerning the mobile industry. The first is of course the release of Apple’s iPhone. What I like most about this phone, besides its functionality is the one-touch-screen-fits-all approach. The user is not constrained to physical keypad and buttons. The phone enable the application to present the user interaction of their choice. I’d imagine that somewhere in the near future, iPhone 2.0 will enable the user itself to choose the UI he/she wishes to use. For example, left-handed people could choose the layout of game controls according to their needs.

The second major event is Google’s announcement of of the Android, the open software stack for mobile devices. The announcement, although not backed-up by actual phone models had already caused fundamental change of hearts with major operators like Verizon and AT&T. These two giants has declared their intention to open up their cell phone network.

Although it still remains to be seen the concrete implications of these announcements, one thing is clear. Mobile phones are becoming more and more a “one size fits all” machines. It already started with the introduction of camera and music players to the phones. The iPhone and android present a notion of having a device that can do almost everything. Want to hear your favorite song? Go to the iPod on your device and finger-scroll your way. Interested in checking how much your stock did lat night? open up the stock widget. Care to change the layout of the phone software? use your mobile browser to find and download the latest calling application.

Still, a couple of questions rise from this “all-you-can-swallow” wonder machines. “Can we handle it?” and “do we really care?”. Talk to your parents and your friends and I’m sure most of them will tell you that all they want is a simple device to make calls and send SMS. Anything else just complicates. Let’s face it, even technophiles, who take their cereals with a GigaOm.com on the side don’t master the entire functionality of their gadgets or the latest cool addition to their Firefox browser (so 2006).

I’m not sure that even teenagers who has more virtual friends on facebook than actual homosapien could master so much technology in one device or even care to use it. What do you think? is it just the beginning? should we expect mobile devices in the near future to be even more featured-pack? Or perhaps, this will cause the exact opposite. People will become so antagonized that they’ll stick to their old mint-condition 2G phones?