

Ask HN: Have you replaced your phone with an iPod Touch? - keiferski

My contract iPhone is expiring soon, and instead of renewing for another 2 years, I&#x27;m considering just using an iPod Touch to talk and text over Wifi.<p>Anyone have experience with this? I&#x27;d also get a cheap pay-as-you-go phone for emergencies. But I like the idea of not always being &quot;on&quot;, as well as the obvious lack of monthly charges.
======
geophile
I'm on tmobile (android phone). The wifi calling feature doesn't work very
well. You have to have a really strong signal, and even then the connection
can be flaky. And for some reason, the feature doesn't work at all with some
wifi hotspots.

So while it's a nice idea, in practice it doesn't work very well for voice.
Texting seems to be OK.

~~~
smartwater
I think it doesn't work because you have to open your browser and accept the
terms before they let you out of their intranet. That's how it works at
Starbucks anyways.

~~~
geophile
Right, I'm talking about after any browser-based authorization has happened.

------
msh
Why not use the iphone with a pay as you go sim (or as a ipod without a sim)?

I have been using my iphone with skype as the phone and just a data sim, it
works okay but IP telephony is not as reliable as normal cellular telephony
but I can live with it.

In my country (denmark) there are no real options for SMS texting without a
normal SIM card (no ip based receiving of sms messages) so unfortunately that
made the thing a no go for me.

------
darkmuck
Use an Android phone without service on wifi. Install any of the these apps:
GrooveIP, Spare Phone, or Talkatone; and you can use Google Voice for texting
and unlimited minutes for free.

------
guynamedloren
Have you heard of
[http://republicwireless.com/](http://republicwireless.com/)? Might accomplish
what you're looking for.

------
deadfall
Have you heard about Ting.com? Pretty cheap mobile service.

