September 21, 2004 12:32 PM PDT
Verizon sets up Iobi Home
Verizon Communications on Tuesday began selling its iobi Home service, which lets customers manage phone calls, voice mail, calendars, address books and e-mail using wire-line and wireless phones, computers, laptops and personal digital assistants.
The $8-a-month personal communications service is available to Verizon residential phone customers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, and across the country soon, the New York company said. An enhanced version for businesses, Iobi Professional, will be launched later this year.
The service has some features you can find elsewhere (AOL, MSN), but also some you can't, so the total package is pretty impressive. I especially like the pop-ups for new calls and voice mail. After playing around with it a bit, it was nice to be able to add someone to the Address Book from the caller id and forward a voice mail. It's also handy to be able to type a quick text message when you need to.
I think the desktop interface is too busy; frankly I like the website version better, but you only get the pop-ups with the desktop. Am still exploring the service - I know there's a user guide but I'm too much of a guy to read it.
What I really want is to be able to access iobi from my Blackberry. How long before Verizon makes that available do you think?
The service has some features you can find elsewhere (AOL, MSN), but also some you can't, so the total package is pretty impressive. I especially like the pop-ups for new calls and voice mail. After playing around with it a bit, it was nice to be able to add someone to the Address Book from the caller id and forward a voice mail. It's also handy to be able to type a quick text message when you need to.
I think the desktop interface is too busy; frankly I like the website version better, but you only get the pop-ups with the desktop. Am still exploring the service - I know there's a user guide but I'm too much of a guy to read it.
What I really want is to be able to access iobi from my Blackberry. How long before Verizon makes that available do you think?