Arlo Gilbert’s Blog

So my partner Andy and I invented this pretty neato company a few years ago named iCall and it essentially breaks down barriers to communications because it lets people make 100% free phone calls. Pretty neat huh?

Well when the iPhone came around and Apple opened up their developer store, we knew that iCall on the iPhone was a match made in heaven. We put together this video (sorry, there was a baby screaming in the background before we got booted out of starbucks for filming).

iCall VoIP on the Apple iPhone from Arlo & Andy on Vimeo.

So anyways, everybody pretty much flipped out about it, we made the new york times, washington post, tech crunch, gizmodo, engadget, and many others… the blogosphere has been buzzing with the fact that we put something simple together. Our phones have been ringing off the hooks, deal after deal has been just handed to us, and we’ve received more than the normal number of inquiries from investors interested in giving us money.

One thing even more amazing happened though, we started selling iPhones, literally hundreds many thousands of people have contacted us telling us that they have bought an iPhone now, only because the iCall app will give them the ability to ditch their landline for good. Why couldn’t they ditch their landline for good before??? Because AT&T has bad coverage in many areas, so despite the fact that people LOVE their iPhones, they are unable to use them in their primary place of business or home quite often… iCall to the rescue! The bells and whistles are all great, but it turns out that what people really want from us is just the ability to make and receive calls when they are at home.

Interesting how you can invent a product for one reason, expecting certain features to be the hot ones, and then it turns out that other features/reasons are the hit.

In any case, i’m off to watch some cheap tv, but iCall will be on the iPhone soon.. very soon, we’re just polishing up a few items so that our app (like many in the app store) isnt riddled with bugs.

TTYL,

Arlo