Talkatone: Unlimited SMS Texting & Calls With WiFi for iOS

Talkatone offers unlimited free in-app calls and texts. The app worked as promised for phone calls, but the calls weren't exactly crystal clear, and the recipient may not know who is calling based on the caller ID info provided. Text messages are another story.

Once Talkatone is installed, it will ask for access to your contacts. Also, Talkatone uses Google Voice to make the calls, so you have to be logged into your Google Account. (We have to wonder what Google thinks about the app makers using and profiting from its service, but that's for another time and place.) The interface will look familiar to you, with very similar Keypad, Contacts, Recents, and Favorites menus to select. Talkatone does introduce a Settings menu that includes Network Preferences for adjusting your call quality, though you'll have to pay for an upgrade to make certain changes. To make a call, we had to activate Google Voice or invite our contact to Talkatone. Activating Google Voice involved signing into our Google account through the app, and then clicking on the link that Talkatone sent to our e-mail, which we had to do on our computer. We went to our Contacts list and selected someone to call. The call to our recipient showed up as a mysterious number from Escondido, Calif., which is nowhere near our location. Once our caller picked up, we talked as usual, but couldn't help but notice the noise in the background. We then tried to send a text, but the app went through the same process of having us activate Google Voice, which we had already done. That being said, we were never able to get the app to work to send a text message.

The app does include a banner ad at the bottom of the screen, so you have to be careful not to tap on it. There is an option in the Settings menu to hide all ads, but it requires payment to upgrade. Talkatone works okay for regular phone calls -- that is, if you can get your recipient to pick up from a caller they don't recognize. However, if you're looking free text messaging, we recommend sticking with Apple's iMessage.

TIP: If you use Talkatone to have a disposable phone number you can now "burn" your number and get a new one. Check it out in the Settings screen!

5.6.6

- New post-call screens let you add contacts, block unwanted calls, or quickly redial or text.

- New phone number "burner" feature. Use your Talkatone number with a dating service or in a classified ad and burn your number when you're done!

- UI bug fixes.

5.6.5

- Invite your friends to join Talkatone and when they do you'll both get some cool rewards as our thanks!

- Connecting after a fresh launch is much faster.

- Chat views are more responsive, particularly in chats where a lot of images are being passed around.

- Updated the built-in browser to work better when on calls.

- Lots of miscellaneous UI bugs squashed.

5.6.4

- A couple of bugs that were causing crashes on startup snuck into 5.6.3. We have dismissed them summarily.

5.6.3

- Sticker support added to chats.

- We love hearing from our users, the fact that we lost the "Contact Us" button was a tragic accident. It has been restored to your Settings screen.

- The chat screen was redone and scrolling performance is much improved. Taking a walk down memory lane should be more pleasant, especially if you have image-heavy conversations.

- We made it easier than ever to invite your friends and family to use Talkatone.

- Talking while heading out the doorkwscnmrk Calls can shift from WiFi to cellular now and you'll never even notice it happening.

- iPad and iPhone Plus users get a variety of UI fixes to make the best use of your large screens to see more messages and pictures.

5.6.2

- UI bug fixes.

5.6.1

- Improvements in how fast Talkatone connects to the server after launching. Get to your calls and texts faster!

- Resolved issues where users would receive a missed call notification without receiving the incoming call notification.

- Fixed an issue where receiving a text from an unknown number wouldn't create a notification.

- Are you living in the future and using IPv6kwscnmrk Rest assured you can always get the high Talkatone voice call quality you expect, no matter whether you're connecting via IPv6, an Edge GSM relay from 2006, or some technology in between.

5.6

- Calls are handled much better when your network connection is unreliable and call records are created even if no network connection is available.

- Your phone won't vibrate any more if you've turned off notifications and receive an incoming call.

- If Talkatone is the active app on your phone an incoming call will ring more than once.

- We improved when we ask for microphone access permission, especially in conjunction with recording a custom voicemail greeting.

- We're always hard at work improving the UI and filing away the rough edges. Several small issues were corrected in this version.