UMA calling on iPhone?

[Dayvidpriddy]

I was talking with a smartphone tech agent today at T-Mobile and she swears there is an App that you can install (either from the App store itself or from Cydia) that allows UMA calling on the iPhones...she says her boyfriend is a major iPhone geek and he has it on his phone. She couldn't remember though where he got it from or what the name was.

I had told her I heard UMA was hardware enabled and not software enabled (I have it on my BlackBerry Curve 8900) but she assured me that there was such a thing. Is this true or what?

Also while I'm at it, I don't understand why Apple or AT&T or both are so against adding the feature to the phone? UMA calling still comes out of your bucket of minutes, it doesn't matter if you are using the cellular network or UMA, it still all works the same way.

On my T-Mobile bill it shows when I use the phone over UMA for each call and those minutes are deducted from my bucket plan, it's not free! So I don't get the argument about all of this as to why they don't add it to the phone. The purpose of having the feature is if you have poor cellular reception you can connect via Wi-Fi and use the phone as you would just on the cellular network.

Any ideas about all of this?

[mrgermy]

It is a hardware thing, you are correct.

In regards to the app her boyfriend got he probably has one of the VoIP apps from the App Store and she is confusing it with that. Technically same functionality (calling over WiFi) but they use different plans. So if you get (and you probably know this, I don't mean to treat you like you don't) one of the VoIP apps from the app store and use it you'll have to pay some other company for the minutes instead of T-Mobile and uses a different phone number (so if someone calls your VoIP number you'd have to have that app open in order to receive the call).

I had UMA on my BB Curve prior to my iPhone and loved it because I have very poor service at my apartment but that doesn't help me now with my iPhone and I don't want to shell out extra money and have another phone number for VoIP service.

[GIRLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL]

You can get VOIP on the iPhone easy if that's what she was talking about, but it doesn't deduct from the minutes on your plan and you need to have an account with whoever you use for the VOIP. There is an unrestricter in Cydia that allows you to make these VOIP calls over EDGE so you can use it wherever.

[babyblue_pimp]

The whole point of using uma is to recieve and make calls, over wifi through the same phone number, when you have no service, making "unrestricted" calls on edge doesn't even make sense in this situation.
I wish there was a full blown uma app for this phone though, the one and only feature I miss from my curve

[vodka_mann]

I just talked to someone a t-mobile too (as I'm jonesing hard code for a smart phone with UMA) and I was also told that you can use their UMA on an unlocked IPhone.

As further proof - check this out;
Uma running on Irish iPhone, why? How?

A picture says a 1000 words.....

Can someone PLEASE shed some light on how to set this up??? It appears legit.

[CaptainChaos]

What is UMA? I looked at the picture by the way and can recreate it with MakeItMine. From what I read UMA is hardware based and the iPhone has the capability, but it has not been implemented on any iPhone anywhere in the world.

[vodka_mann]

Unlicensed Mobile Access. I'm a t-mobile customer and pay $10 a month for our 3 phones and we can connect our phones to any WiFi network and once I'm on we can make and receive calls without using minutes.

A lot of people say "just use skype" but UMA is VERY different. People call my normal number and I answer calls just like normal with UMA - when I walk outside of the WiFi network it just switches back to normal.

Long story short - with UMA, I receive and make calls like normal - I don't have to run some app or give people a special number to call me at, etc etc.

[babyblue_pimp]

Unlicensed Mobile Access. I'm a t-mobile customer and pay $10 a month for our 3 phones and we can connect our phones to any WiFi network and once I'm on we can make and receive calls without using minutes.

A lot of people say "just use skype" but UMA is VERY different. People call my normal number and I answer calls just like normal with UMA - when I walk outside of the WiFi network it just switches back to normal.

Long story short - with UMA, I receive and make calls like normal - I don't have to run some app or give people a special number to call me at, etc etc.

You can make any iphone say any carrier, its called makeitmine

But until ATT has a service like T-Mobiles @Home service, the iPhone will never have UMA capabilities.

In fact i believe comparable phones on ATT, such as blackberries, do not support UMA, where as their T-Mobile counterparts do.

[MFDOOM44]

i miss UMA!

i don't have good connection at work so i used to use my blackberry's UMA to text the ladies, haha. i know there are texting apps on the iphone that use wifi but we can't use our normal cell number with them

[MrWHOx]

how does that picture seem legit, vodka_mann?

That looks like MakeItMine on a 2.x firmware.

[dale2]

facetime calls people over wifi using their actual phone number
how is that different from UMA, besides the video?
if the iphone can do facetime, im sure it can do UMA, it just lacks the software

to all the people saying its because at&t lacks UMA, does apple not care about all the canadian, european, asian, and other carriers that likely have something similar?
at&t's exclusivity is USA only, and the iphone is popular worldwide