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.
UPDATE March 3rd 2010: We’re making some more changes to the Skydeck service and the BlackBerry version is free again.
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.
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…)
(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.
We’ve had lots of great responses to Skydeck’s new features (check out the reviews) and lots of feature suggestions! Please keep them coming.
We’ve also been testing multiple price plans and combinations, including free trials, free and premium versions of the service, and gated access. For now we’ve settled on a 30-day free trial with unlimited access – that’s unlimited domestic calling in the US and unlimited voicemail transcription – so tell all your friends. (If you were not offered a free trial during the last two weeks of testing, we’ll be sending you an email to offer you one month free.)
If there’s one thing we hate more than dialing voicemail, it’s figuring out voicemail menus. We’ve just added a section to the ‘My Account’ page to let you manage your voicemail preferences from the web. You can choose text message alerts, email, or both, and you can even turn off transcription if you wish.
We’ve gotten lots of great reviews for the new version of Skydeck and this morning I did an interview with Robert Scoble. Enjoy.
When we launched the beta version of Skydeck last June, we said that our goal was to help people manage their cell phones online. We said that you ought to be able to manage your cell phone conversations the same way that you manage your email. We said that this is your data, and that you ought to have more control over it.
This morning we released a new version of our service that delivers against all these ideas and more. We’re calling the new Skydeck “your cell phone, online.”
Now all of your calls, all of your text messages, all of your voicemails, and all of your contacts appear on Skydeck.com in real time, and you can search, read, and reply to your messages from Skydeck as if it were your cell phone.
For those of you who were already using Skydeck, let me just point out the new features:
We’ve completely redesigned the interface to incorporate all these new features (and almost accidentally I think we’ve built the best address book application on the web).
Technically, Skydeck combines an (optional) application on the handset, a Flash softphone, a voicemail system, and voicemail transcription with a completely redesigned version of our rich Internet application, our original software for collecting data from carrier web sites, and an expanded set of APIs that give you programmatic access to your data in real time. But that’s like saying a cell phone is a combination of a radio, a microphone, a speaker, a display, and a keypad. It’s really very simple: Skydeck is your cell phone, online.
For the best possible experience, you need a Blackberry or Android phone, with full support for Windows Mobile coming soon. But many of the new features of Skydeck are compatible with almost every cell phone in America, so please sign up to find out.
We’ve also kept our promise that the original features of Skydeck would remain free. Some of the new features are not, but plans start at just $9.95 per month – the same price as adding a line to your family plan.
Thank you for all your enthusiasm and suggestions over the past 6 months. We hope you enjoy Skydeck.
