The latest version of Skydeck – including Caller ID – is now available for all Android handsets in the US.
We started releasing new versions of Skydeck for Android in November, but it took longer than we expected to support the new Verizon Droid (because Google rewrote the contact management system for version 2.0 of the Android operating system, if you are interested).
Get Skydeck now from the Android Market on your phone.
Last night Apple approved version 1.0 of Skydeck for the iPhone (link goes directly to the App Store).
Back Up
You can back up all your iPhone contacts wirelessly, you can manage them online, and you can move them to a new iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android device if you lose or replace your phone.
Look Up
Every time you call or text a number that is not in your address book, Skydeck Caller ID will look up that number for you and let you add it to your contacts with one click.
Keep Up
You can keep all your contacts up to date. Ask any number of friends for an update via Skydeck and the app will gather all their responses and update your iPhone address book for you. If you are both Skydeck members, we’ll keep your contact information up to date automatically.
For the first time, you can keep your contacts up to date by connecting Skydeck to Facebook. Skydeck will check to see which of your phone contacts are friends with you on Facebook and import all their profile photos for you – not just once but every time they change their photos in the future.
Skydeck for iPhone is a free app, and we hope you like it. We have lots more features in the works; let us know what you’d like to see next in the comments.
There’s a new model emerging for startups like Skydeck. You build simple products with easy-to-understand features, you release them for free to gauge demand, and then you develop them further in collaboration with your users until they reach a point where the value you’re creating and the business model become obvious. (more…)
Skydeck now supports the official releases of OS 5.0 for the BlackBerry.
What does that mean? If you have a brand new Storm, or an old Storm that just got upgraded to OS 5.0, go to m.skydeck.com on your phone and download the latest version of Skydeck.
If you downloaded one of the “unofficial” releases of OS 5.0 for your Curve/Tour/Bold/etc., we’re sorry, but Skydeck may not work for you yet.
Today T-Mobile became the first carrier in the US to offer customers the following choice: sign a new 2 year contract and get a cheap phone, or bring your own phone to the network and get the same plan for a lower monthly fee, with no commitment.
This is really interesting. Bear with me.
For years, US carriers have locked customers into long-term contracts by offering them a ‘cheap’ new phone. It seems like a great deal, until you realize that the carrier has crippled the phone. Some features don’t work at all. Some require you to pay the carrier an extra fee. And there are lots of restrictions on third-party apps (like Skydeck).
So why don’t more people pay up for the unlocked, uncensored version of their phone? (more…)
What do you do when you get a call from a number that you don’t recognize? At best it’s annoying, and it can be much much worse.
Do you answer and sometimes wish you hadn’t? Or do you let it go to voicemail and hope they leave a message?
Starting today on Blackberry smartphones, Skydeck gives you another option: ignore the call and Skydeck will tell you who rang. (If you have the right phone and carrier, we’ll let you know while the phone is still ringing.) (more…)
(An edited version of this first appeared as a guest post on VentureBeat.)
There’s a battle brewing for control of your mobile address book. Don’t be surprised. Tap Tap Revolution or Twitterberry may get the love, but the address book is the most valuable app on your phone.
Phone numbers are not like email addresses. Those are often sensible or have a display name attached, and the message itself may have a signature. Xobni has shown that you can build an address book on the fly in Outlook by mining the headers and content of your email. Phone numbers are almost random. Area codes are losing their meaning thanks to virtual numbers and number portability; no major mobile operator supports Caller Name Display; there is no (official) directory of cell phone numbers; and you can’t sign a phone call. Unless you have a gift for memorizing 10-digit numbers, you have to maintain your own little routing table.
It’s tedious enough to stop some people from switching carrier if they can’t take their address book with them. In the US, most phones do not have swappable SIM cards. Until recently, few allowed third-party apps to access the address book, and almost none support SyncML out of the box. (This is why popular European services like Zyb, Soocial, and Funambol are not well known in the US – they were all originally based on SyncML.) Some carriers offer wireless backup and restore, but only between their own phones. Some even block you from sharing contacts one a time over Bluetooth. To transfer your address book, you have to hack your phone with BitPim or buy a $40 gizmo like Backup-Pal or CellStik.
But there’s much more at stake than “churn.” (more…)
(Everything below is covered in the video.)
Today we’re announcing a mashup of Skydeck and Google Voice that gives you the core features of both for free.
First, in case you don’t know, what is Skydeck and what is Google Voice?
Skydeck is your cell phone online. All your calls, text messages, voicemails and contacts are backed up on Skydeck.com and you can search, read, and reply to your messages (by voice or by text) from Skydeck as if it were your cell phone.
There’s no change to your phone number or the way you use your phone. The Skydeck app on your phone backs up all of your contacts, calls and texts to Skydeck.com. If you don’t answer a call, Skydeck takes a voicemail, converts the speech to text, and sends you an email. If you are at your desk, you can call or text people from Skydeck. The call appears to come from your cell phone, so your friends will know who it is. (more…)
Today Skydeck is announcing full support for phones powered by Windows Mobile 6.0 or later.
If you have a Verizon Touch, a Sprint Mogul or Treo 800w, a T-Mobile Dash, an AT&T Q or Blackjack or any other recent Windows Mobile phone, you can now enjoy all the features of Skydeck. All of your calls, all of your text messages, and all your cell phone contacts will be mirrored on skydeck.com as they happen, and you can search, read, and reply to your messages from Skydeck as if it were your cell phone.
Some features of Skydeck like voicemail transcription and Internet calling are compatible with almost every cell phone in the US, but before now you needed a Blackberry or Android smartphone to get the works.
Current users can download the new Windows Mobile Sync Client under ‘My Account’, and first-timers can get Skydeck at http://skydeck.com/signup.
At Skydeck we’ve been playing around with Google Latitude, the new feature of Google Maps for mobile phones that allows you to share your location with friends.
The Latitude idea has been floating around for years, but … it’s very hard to do well on one model of cell phone; there are actually hundreds of different kinds; there is no obvious revenue model; cell phone and Internet companies cannot agree on how to split the non-obvious revenue; and privacy advocates think the whole idea is insane. Google has cut through all of this by ignoring revenue for now, spending a fortune to build clients for many different kinds of phones as well as systems that can figure out the location of those phones without the help of cell phone companies, and promising to do no evil.
It works really well. If you connect to me, I can see where you are at all times. No more “I’m here – where are you?” phone calls. At a sprawling conference in Barcelona, the Skydeck team were able to keep track of each other and co-ordinate meetings. And my wife knows when I am on my way home. (more…)
