iPad mini retina as a phone

The iPad had no built-in cellular telephone capability, although you can use Apps such as Skype, FaceTime, etc to make calls

Nope, as mentioned it has no voice connection or calling capability at all. It connects to a cellular networks data network only, not any carriers voice network.

Your only options to use it as a phone will be various VOIP systems that use the internet to place calls. A wifi+LTE iPad can connect to the internet over wifi, or over a cellular carriers data network so can use internet services for calls.

An iPad is assigned a phone number as an internal billing reference number only - you cannot use that number to make or receive calls.

The iPad is not a Phone. The Cellular portion is only used for Data (internet access).

No Phone App to make calls or anything like that.

Actually you can use the ipad mini as a phone and it actually makes the best and cheapest phone to have, and you aren't held down to a phone plan. And you can have a dedicated phone number to make and receive calls. At times people aren't aware of all it can do. But thats why there's people like me 😁

Here are the steps

1. Get a cellular equiped IPAD. It will be data only ofcourse.

2. Get a google voice account. ( you will be assigned a phone number)

3. Download Talkatone

4. After setting up Talkatone with your google voice number, You'll be able to make and receive calls and text and it will be your primary phone.

Cost every month. Just the cost of your data plan. Cheapest phone ever. 30 bucks a month.

Actually you can use the ipad mini as a phone and it actually makes the best and cheapest phone to have, and you aren't held down to a phone plan. And you can have a dedicated phone number to make and receive calls. At times people aren't aware of all it can do. But thats why there's people like me 😁

Here are the steps

1. Get a cellular equiped IPAD. It will be data only ofcourse.

2. Get a google voice account. ( you will be assigned a phone number)

3. Download Talkatone

4. After setting up Talkatone with your google voice number, You'll be able to make and receive calls and text and it will be your primary phone.

Cost every month. Just the cost of your data plan. Cheapest phone ever. 30 bucks a month.

Actually you can use the ipad mini as a phone and it actually makes the best and cheapest phone to have, and you aren't held down to a phone plan. And you can have a dedicated phone number to make and receive calls. At times people aren't aware of all it can do. But thats why there's people like me 😁

Here are the steps

1. Get a cellular equiped IPAD. It will be data only ofcourse.

2. Get a google voice account. ( you will be assigned a phone number)

3. Download Talkatone

4. After setting up Talkatone with your google voice number, You'll be able to make and receive calls and text and it will be your primary phone.

Cost every month. Just the cost of your data plan. Cheapest phone ever. 30 bucks a month.

chuck kendall wrote:

Actually you can use the ipad mini as a phone and it actually makes the best and cheapest phone to have, and you aren't held down to a phone plan. And you can have a dedicated phone number to make and receive calls. At times people aren't aware of all it can do. But thats why there's people like me 😁

Here are the steps

1. Get a cellular equiped IPAD. It will be data only ofcourse.

2. Get a google voice account. ( you will be assigned a phone number)

3. Download Talkatone

4. After setting up Talkatone with your google voice number, You'll be able to make and receive calls and text and it will be your primary phone.

Cost every month. Just the cost of your data plan. Cheapest phone ever. 30 bucks a month.

😕😕 As I said, you can usean iPad with VOIP services - no one ever said you could not use it as a Phone. You can use just about any internet enabled device with VOIP as long as there is software for that device.

You cannot use the phone number assigned to your iPad data plan as a phone number however.

Yeah but you did say you can't make and receive calls. The iPad having a data plan is perfect. Which means you always have a connection with or without wifi and so Talkatone can Utilize both wifi and cellular. Therefore it's the perfect solution. You wouldn't need anything else. Again this is in response to you saying you can't make and receive calls with an iPad. That is inaccurate.

chuck kendall wrote:

Yeah but you did say you can't make and receive calls.

No, I did not say that - please don't claim I wrote something that I did not.

I said:

"Nope, as mentioned it has no voice connection or calling capability at all. It connects to a cellular networks data network only, not any carriers voice network.

Your only options to use it as a phone will be various VOIP systems that use the internet to place calls. A wifi+LTE iPad can connect to the internet over wifi, or over a cellular carriers data network so can use internet services for calls."

Which is exactly what Tapatalk, Skype, or any other VOIP service does. You can only use it over VOIP on a data network, so no, an iPad out-of-the box cannot be used as a phone, as the OP indicated they hoped it might be - only with the addition of VOIP software can it be used as phone.

I am sadly, somewhat of an expert in this regard.

I use Talkatone, and have for years, on a myriad of devices. It's now reliable, the audio quality is terrible, and I keep falling back to a real phone. I have a 5S, and a mini, and my mini retina just shipped and will arrive Monday. I am hoping that three things in the updated model will improve the overall experience on the iPad. 1. A much faster CPU (A7). 2. Noise canceling dual microphones. 3. Mimo antennas.

Turning off Wifi and using LTE or even 3G yields the best call quality through Talkatone presently. Counter intuitive? Yes, but this has been my experience, again, over years and a myriad of devices. I have 3 or 4 times tried to live out of Talkatone, or the othe VoIP apps, and it's just not possible. They are all sub-par. Nothing is going to be as good as a real cell phone call, with the possible exception now of FaceTime Audio calls, but then the recipient must have a iDevice running iOS 7.0.4 and have FaceTime correctly activated.

I will report back to this thread in 2 weeks to see if there's any improvement. I doubt there will be, ftr.

And why, why, is this the first place online I have ever found that stops Apple's built-in spell checker from working? And ironically, it's Apple's own site. How, so, VERY typical. *SMDH*

*not, not now. NOT reliable.

I just started doing this a few days ago and I have to say, it works great so far!

As my iPhone 4s slowly broke down and my contract came to an end, I thought really hard about whether or not to invest in another iPhone and get locked into a 2 year contract (I was paying $100/ month for phone and data). Also, since I had been contemplating buying an iPad for a while to use for work (I work in creative), buying the iPad Mini with cell capabilities seemed like the best solution.

Just like Chuck said, I got the 32G Retina Mini with Verizon and have been using my Google Voice number with the Talkatone app. I'm not quite ready to port my old number to Google due to the very mixed reviews I've read online, not to mention the pain in the arse process, so I'm keeping it on a pay-per-use plan. Since I work from home, I usually rely on Wifi and don't require data except for calls/ emails when I'm out and about. So I'm trying out the 2G data plan for the first month, which is only $30!

Of course it's a little awkward at first. Imagine hearing a ring, and going to pick up a device that is at least twice as big as your normal phone. But as a woman, I'm always carrying a purse, so it isn't much of an issue to carry it around. Plus, I have always been a dedicated headset user, so that hasn't been too much of a transition either.

I was just traveling in Thailand and saw that some people were using their tablets as their phones - where I first got the idea. Perhaps this is the wave of the future, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be an iPad XMini one of these days soon!