VoIP + iPod with Mic = Unlocked iPhone

I own an iPod Touch and bought a headset with a mic to make Skype calls over WiFi. But voice search and voice-powered apps don't work with the headset mic. In addition, there's no camera. But all that may soon change. Rumors previously surfaced that Apple was going to add a camera and a mic to the next iPod Touch refresh.

Now according to a Wired blog, the new iPod devices with cameras and mics will go on sale in "two to three months":

If iPod Touches with cameras and microphones go on sale “in two to three months,” as our source expects them to (and which corresponds with our expected timeframe), they will transform the entertainment-oriented iPod Touch line into a voice communications tool wherever WiFi is available.

More provocative than Skype on an iPod Touch is Google Voice, which offers a "normal" phone number for both outbound and inbound calls. I installed the Google Voice app on my Android phone -- the phone I got at the Google developer "I/O" conference.

That phone came with a month of free service, which has now expired. I use it on WiFi networks to test Android applications. The Google Voice app doesn't seem to work on just a pure WiFi network -- it seems to require an underlying carrier voice/dataplan -- although it should and I can send texts via Google Voice.

I'm hopeful that the forthcoming version of Google Voice for the iPhone (VoiceCentral already integrates them) will work on WiFi networks. If so, and the rumors about the iPod Touch with a built-in mic are true, Apple will effectively be selling an unlocked iPhone.

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Related: Google Voice: Trouble Calling for Skype?