Android App Spotlight #19: Sipdroid

Price: Free
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Session Initiation Protocol is commonly used to control multimedia streams at the application layer, according to Wikipedia. While there's a little too much on that page to wrap my head around, the most popular app that takes advantage of it, Sipdroid, presents a dead simple interface.









Using it along with several other services, you can do things like this:

I was able to set it up with these instructions and no issues whatsoever. Of course, it defaults to being used whenever I'm connected via wifi, which I don't like, as it isn't as glossy or integrated with the Android interface. You can turn that off, though, so it sits in the background, waiting for a call to your Google Voice number. I wouldn't leave it running all the time, because it probably uses at least a little battery life, and also if you use the integrated Google Voice app, your phone essentially rings twice, and you immediately miss one of the calls. Nevertheless, I was able to make a call this afternoon with no sim in my phone, which might be helpful if you, for example, take a little jaunt over to Qatar in the future.