This week at CTIA, California’s FreedomVOICE launched Newber (a portmanteau of “New” and “Number”), a secondary business line product for the iPhone.
The idea isn’t too far from that of Google’s GrandCentral: One phone number that will always ring on the phone nearest you. GrandCentral’s means of pulling this off is a bit blind, dialing all your registered phone numbers en masse – so while it’ll ring the phone nearest you, it rings all the rest of’em, too. Newber, however, uses the iPhone’s GPS to figure out which line is the closest alternative, and lets you redirect all incoming Newber line calls to that one number with just a click or two in the iPhone application.
You can also use the app to disable your Newber line (sending all Newber-line calls straight to voicemail) when you’re clocking out for the day, to dial-out from your Newber number so that it shows on the other end’s caller id (This is also possible in GrandCentral, with the use of the third-party application GrandDialer), or to seamlessly switch your current active call to one of your other lines without dropping or otherwise interrupting the flow of the call (also possible with GrandCentral).
Newber offers iPhone users an intuitive interface straight within its application, something which Google has somehow managed to fail to do with GrandCentral. The downside? Newber isn’t free. At $5 bucks per month plus 2 cents per minute, 500 minutes of use would set you back around 15 bucks. While that probably won’t break the bank for the average suit, I can’t imagine that Google hasn’t at least considered making an iPhone application that does all that Newber does (sans, perhaps, the GPS-based line assignment) at the same price point GrandCentral is already at: free.
Is it worth it? You decide. FreedomVOICE has given us 15 beta keys (generally reserved for members of the media) to give out to our readers – just drop us a comment below with “I want a beta key.” somewhere in it. We’ll pick 15 random comments from those that include that line. Usage of the Newber service will be gratis for the duration of the beta, and you can keep your number by signing up for the pay-service at the end. Just make sure you have an iPhone to test it on (You’ll need to be able to provide FreedomVOICE with a device ID for them to give you access), and that we can reach you at the address you leave in the e-mail field.