Carrying Two Phones

I’ve been carrying two phones for the last week. I’m trying Google Fi on my Nexus 6 and so I put my TMobile sim card into my old iPhone and now I’ve got two functioning phones.

I’ve never liked carrying two phones. It creates cognitive dissonance for me. I like the simplicity of having one phone that does it all for me. And that’s the way I’ve operated since getting a cell phone over twenty years ago.

However, because most of my apps are completely interoperable across iOS and Android and sync data in the cloud, it almost doesn’t matter what phone I take out of what pocket right now.

I can do gmail on my Nexus 6 and then pick up my iPhone and the reply is there. I can take photos on both devices and they are all in Dropbox syncd across both devices. Instagram Snapchat and Twitter work identically on both platforms and it doesn’t matter which device I use to access them.

The phone number on the device does matter a bit but I’ve forwarded my Google Fi number to my TMo number so I get all my calls and texts on my iPhone. Sadly the forwarding doesn’t work in reverse which means my iPhone becomes the default voice and texting device in this current setup. It would be cool if you could virtualize a number across both devices and make that irrelevant too.

What this experience has taught me is the device and OS almost don’t matter anymore. If I want a big screen to read on I pull my Nexus 6 out of my pocket. If I want small and light, I pull out my iPhone.

I might stick with this two phone approach for a while. Google Fi is not available on iOS yet and as much as I want to move to Fi from TMo, I don’t think I want to be locked into any device or OS. And the cool thing is you don’t have to be locked in anymore. The smartphone and the smartphone operating systems have become a commoditized layer of the tech stack and users are benefitting from that.

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Comments (Archived):

  1. Dave Pinsen

    Maybe there will be a hardware solution: a phone that lets you adjust its screen size between your two preferences.

  2. Ron Zember

    If only the major smartwatches (Android Wear and Apple Watch) were also compatible with competing OS’s

    1. fredwilson

      Do we still think watches will be a thing? I’m increasingly doubting that they will

      1. Ron Zember

        I think some sort of wearables will be. Here’s hoping that our retinal and thought-controlled interfaces will be cross-OS compatible

      2. pointsnfigures

        Right now all I hear is that if you have a watch, you aren’t on your phone as much. “Get a watch and stop looking at your phone-get reacquainted with your surroundings”. Will peer pressure sell a watch?

        1. awaldstein

          peer communities as consumer around trend buying are the most powerful force in the market.they are it. there is nothing more from clothes to food to exercise to behavior.

          1. pointsnfigures

            Wondering if we will go to watch, flipphone and tablet when we are mobile.

          2. awaldstein

            i seriously don’t know.what i do know is that the thing that drives usage is instant communications–more and more cross all age groups, text is becoming my mainstay. I’m on imessage all day long.single functionality for apps just rules. can’t find my uber or moviephone or quickbook app–i’m momentarily screwed and seriously aggravated.

        2. Matt Zagaja

          Not sure people will pressure their peers to get one (I really don’t care if anyone else gets a watch) but am happy to extoll the virtues for those trying to make a decision. I don’t think the advertising does it much justice. Yeah it looks nice as a fashion item but that’s not why I like it.

      3. Richard Lee

        FWIW, I’ve had the watch for 3 weeks now and am surprised at the convenience of keeping my phone in my pocket for certain tasks (text response, walking directions once I set up via phone, weather, golf app for distance)…for health, i don’t think apple has even scratched the surface, but find myself checking my daily activity (even though it’s clearly a work in progress)…i was never a watch user before, so maybe this is a fad, but have been surprised by its incremental utility. i think for v1, it’s great

      4. Mario Cantin

        So you were right all along it seems.

      5. Matt Zagaja

        I’ve seen zero people wearing Android watches (except at a tech event in NYC at the LG booth and also CES). Only a few people wearing Apple Watch so far. I’ve had mine for a few weeks and to be honest I like it better than I thought I would. Was awesome for walking directions when I was exploring San Francisco and didn’t want to look like a tourist (it taps you on the wrist when you need to make a turn in a different pattern depending on left or right).I have been seeing lots of Fitbit Flex models around (along with Jawbone up). They are not watches per se but perform lots of the other functions that Apple Watch does at the $150 or below price point. I’m wondering if Apple overshot consumer price tolerance and will need to introduce a basic model or if the current model will go down 50% when Gen2 is released. Either way it seems to me that there is demand for some kind of sensor band that goes on a wrist.Though don’t forget it took quite a while for it to seem like the original iPhone and iPad went mainstream.

        1. fredwilson

          yeah, i guess it is more of a thing than google glass

  3. awaldstein

    We’ve come a very long way!Many readers here I bet have spent months of their lives white boarding out every minute piece of what you describe in a hrase as reality. I sure have. Countless all nighters.What is interesting is that the winners will not be those who make this simplest but those who understand how to let the market know it is there. It certainly doesn’t as yet as you/we/this community is 6-18 months ahead of the market.

  4. William Mougayar

    How about a dual-SIM phone that can do the Fi bit? That seems to be a more elegant answer.”the device and OS almost don’t matter anymore.” Exactly. I realized that when I switched to the Xiaomi from the iPhone, and didn’t miss much from an apps / data point of view.

    1. Bernard Desarnauts

      That would be more elegant indeed!

  5. LIAD

    …so where in the stack is the differentiated value these days.back to our good ole friend networked software.iMessage/Facetime predominantly but even those are being eroded with Whatsapp voice-calls/Facebook unbundled Messenger.What happens longterm as the whole stack commodotizes? is the war won on branding and hardware design?

    1. pointsnfigures

      Was asking myself the same question? Is video a differentiator; Chromecast vs AppleTV vs Amazon Fire?

      1. LIAD

        i think you have to look at it as ‘whatever can be commotodized eventually will’ – what can never be commodotized brand and possibly patented tech?

        1. Chimpwithcans

          Only problem with this is how broad the word ‘brand’ is for me. By ‘brand’ do you mean a manufactured consumer loyalty, and lasting attention?

      2. John Beales

        Chromecast works pretty great from iOS devices, at least when I’ve tried it. Apple TV causes lock-in though.On iOS the differentiator is still apps. There are some great Indie apps that don’t exist for Android, and may never, (Tweetbot, and thing from OmniGroup).

        1. pointsnfigures

          I have heard from developers that bringing web based software to iOS is easier than Android because you only have to deal with one platform and not five.

          1. John Beales

            As a web guy myself I tend to roll my eyes when I hear “too many device sizes, watch.”I understand that supporting entirely new platforms is tricky, though, especially when all the mobile platforms have such different programming languages. Many iOS indie drys have clearly stated that they have no interest in supporting Android, despite existing customers asking for it, (OmniGroup is the best example here, lots of people use OmniFocus on the Mac and want a way to access it on their Android device, but they can’t).

          2. Matt Zagaja

            Does android have people like John Gruber or Marco Arment that have legions of followers that will buy apps? People in the iOS development community seem to have this belief that not enough Android users would be interested in purchasing their apps for it to be worth it. Though I think others just stick to iOS because that’s what they like.

          3. John Beales

            Other than Fred, there isn’t anyone I’m aware of 😉

  6. pointsnfigures

    Having two phones would drive me crazy. Don’t know how you manage that one.

    1. falicon

      agree – I try to use/rely on my *one* phone as little as possible…can’t imagine having two or more phones to try and ignore all day 😉

  7. dbhurley

    I’m still partial a bit to using Google Voice. I’ve found it’s a great way to keep one central number while being able to swap phones or even use two phones. Basically I’m doing the “virtual number” you’re talking about. This is really nice because you can switch phones in an emergency in a matter of seconds. Also with TMO behind it, if you have their simply global plan…you can use your phone anywhere in the world and keep the same number as you travel. Big plus for me. And you can call/pickup on your laptop even if your phone is dead. (again, another big plus for international stuff).

    1. John Beales

      I came here from my feed reader to mention GV – isn’t it exactly the voice virtualizatuion Fred is looking for?

      1. nwwells

        Me too! I used Google Voice a lot in my Android days. The integration with iOS is a bit crappy, but for number forwarding it would be exactly what you’re looking for!Although, it seems like Google is scrapping it in favor of Hangouts (which isn’t really a replacement).

    2. Cj

      Only problem is that Google Voice doesn’t work with Google Fi. Dumb but true.

  8. JimHirshfield

    Google Fi sounds great. Check.You make a strong case that h/w and OS are (becoming) commoditized. Check.But I don’t get why you’re carrying two phones. You’ve actually made a strong case against needing to carry both.

  9. Twain Twain

    I want a world where we don’t have to lug devices and plugs around at all.I want a world where the tech (microphones, sensors etc.) is embedded into our environment, our clothing, our transportation etc.I want to get us to a world where we simply wave our hands in thin air and speak into air space and the TECH MAGIC SIMPLY HAPPENS.I HATE lugging equipment around, even something as seemingly small and light as a mobile phone.

    1. William Mougayar

      but don’t you need the smartphone in your pocket to recognize your gestures and transmit their meaning?

      1. John Beales

        Not if there are sensors and transmitters everywhere!

      2. Twain Twain

        Exactly as John Beales comments.Sure, for now we have to contend with existing technologies.Hey, have you read Zuckerberg’s views?”As that technology improves, he foresees us bypassing smartphones and computers altogether, and speaking to each other using the power of our minds.”One day, I believe we’ll be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology,” he said. “You’ll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too if you’d like. This would be the ultimate communication technology.”* http://www.businessinsider….Meanwhile, Google’s futurist Ray Kurzweil has Google Cloud manipulating the nanobots inside our brain cells:”Ultimately these devices will be the size of blood cells, we’ll be able to send them inside our brain through the capillaries, and basically connect up brain to the cloud,” Kurzweil says. “But that’s a mid-2030’s scenario.”In Kurzweil’s vision, these advances don’t simply bring computers closer to our biological systems. Machines become more like us. “Your personality, your skills are contained in information in your neocortex, and it is information,” Kurzweil says. “These technologies will be a million times more powerful in 20 years and we will be able to manipulate the information inside your brain.”* http://www.marketplace.org/…So my vision wherein the technology’s externally embedded, controlled by us and deployed throughout our environment rather than embedded as mind-control bots is positively HUMAN & NATURAL by comparison, :*).

        1. John Beales

          Sending daydreams would be amazing. Imagine how well brainstorming sessions would go if everyone’s thoughts were shared and recorded.

          1. Twain Twain

            As long as the daydreams aren’t distorted and don’t look like what Google DeepDream AI does:

          2. PhilipSugar

            I think if my thoughts were shared I would be “committed” 🙂

          3. Twain Twain

            Haha, so this morning I read an article on LinkedIn from French tech ecosystem folks who are trying to foster their founders with “Be deviant not different.”

        2. Roger Toennis

          Read Naam Ramez’s Nexus series of books. You will like.

          1. Twain Twain

            Thanks, see HG Wells…I wrote an article ‘The Global Brain’ that got a lot of views on Google Knol which is in the broad space of “the hive mind”. Oh the over-activity of a female mind and hands!I don’t agree with Kurzweil’s version of the Singularity, by the way. The flaw in his version being that he assumes the processing SPEED afforded by bigger and more powerful machines (Moore’s Law) is equivalent to the VELOCITY of information understanding.Unlike velocity, speed has no directionality or acceleration and a very different force.It’s the fundamental flaw in pretty much all of existing assumption frameworks for “Big Data” and Machine Learning AI too.

          2. Roger Toennis

            Agree with your point about Kurzweil and speed vs. velocity. I read his Coming of Singularity book when it was published.Agree also on AI. I did some AI work in grad school for NASA in 90s. Its not about speed of the computational processing its about structuring the memory storage and processing for enabling emergent intelligence using the new technologies of memresistors, memcapacitors and meminductors that model analog memory and processing capabilities.As Davinci said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Sentience at it’s core is actually quite simple once you move away from polar opposites digitization (1s and 0s) as the means for attempting to spark an artificial sentience.

          3. Twain Twain

            Oh goodie! Thanks for quoting Da Vinci. If you did grad work for NASA, you obviously have more years of experience in AI than me!So…a few years back I got a “bee in my brain” which made me go see my former Head of Maths at university and proclaim, “Probability doesn’t work for us and how our brains work so I’m inventing another system!”Needless to say, my Professor gave me the look I remembered well as a teenager: “What madness are you up to NOW, Twain?!” Being Emeritus Professor of Probability & Statistics, he cautioned that I was “up against a few hundred years of probability, as you know.”Anyway, I decided that Da Vinci must have the clues I needed…so I picked up that piece of string and unraveled it back by first principles and where the “fork” happened that makes our modern-day systems erroneously over-dependent on polar opposites digitization (1’s and 0’s, aka binary), including in AI sentience as well as in gender designations (0=female, 1=male).I’m aiming for sense-making rather than sentience per se, by the way.Yes and the solution is “SO simple, people will wonder why they didn’t think of it before! It’s not like NASA! It’s not rocket science!!!” That’s what my friend, who’s a CTO, said when I finally shared an atom of my system with him.It’s all Descartes’ misdirections about the human mind being rational and logical, incidentally.There are other clues from Da Vinci too but the biggest clue is in the Vitruvian Man which has been one of my favorite works since childhood.

    2. awaldstein

      a world where there is no controls over who we are and how we drive actions from our connections is indeed the stuff of nightmares.the fact that you can disconnect even if you choose not to is the last bastion of self determination.

      1. Twain Twain

        See my reply to William below, :*).I believe controls should always be in the hands of humans (flawed and fallible as we are) rather than in the machines and the nanobots inside our brain cells.There are definitely different schools of philosophy and practice about how tech works and what it should do for us.

        1. awaldstein

          almost all controls are in the hands of the platforms we use not ourselves honestly so the more you are omni connected the more you are out of the loop of your own ability to be in control.

          1. Twain Twain

            Let’s imagine Blockchain is a form of interoperable OpenID that ports us into all the products and services we need and each one of us has control and equity/remuneration control over that OpenID.Let’s further imagine that the key access is as unique to us as TouchID and where and how we’ve clicked………

    3. JLM

      .And to think I was in business before the invention of the PC — had a “luggable” Compaq as a first taste of technology.First world problems?JLMwww.thsmusingsofthebigredca…

      1. LE

        I have been very lucky to see the evolution of the things that I have played with or was involved with, or just liked, become better and better over the years.Here are the things that I did in my teens:1 – “Played” with computers (had a teletype at the house that I could use to dial up to a school mainframe)2 – Did photography (had a darkroom)2a – Video I was able to borrow a luggable video setup from school and played with video cameras at the school.3 – Rc Gas Model Helicopters (had to build from scratch, was in my 20’s though).4 – Entrepreneurship (all sorts of side businesses going on..)Each of the above things nobody cared about much [1] and they were considered niche activities at the time that I was “playing” in those areas. (Photography a bit different only had 1 friend that did that). Now all of those activities have advanced greatly and are mainstream, interestingly enough because of advances in technology.[1] When my girlfriend’s mother in college heard that I was going to start a business she frowned as if I had chosen to have a trade as a career I remember to this day the look on her face of disappointment.

      2. Girish Mehta

        Compaq luggable and Osborne luggable below. The Osborne Executive luggable was introduced in 1982 the same year as the Compaq luggable. Two different fates – Osborne filed for bankruptcy couple of years later, Compaq went on to become the world’s number 1 PC maker by 1994. Check out the smartphone next to the Osborne luggable. Osborne also became known for “The Osborne Effect” – unintended consequences of a pre-announcement.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

      3. awaldstein

        My team sold 78 million full sized Sound Blaster ISA cards.The developer relations team were on the road 75% of the time for four years straight schlepping a luggable and a full sized monitor with a mixer and set of speakers to demo it.The Dolch luggable was a gift from the gods of retail to us.Being strong was up there with being a music and gaming geek.

        1. LE

          The developer relations team were on the road 75% of the time for four years straight schlepping a luggableHowever that is also a barrier to entry.In the early 90’s I remember those mfg. rep firms that were used by many sellers of computer gear. Independent small businesses that covered certain geographic areas and had ins at all of the vars and retail stores. At the time I sold a dye sublimation printer that I had to lug around to demo all over the US.

      4. PhilipSugar

        I did too….those suitcases were heavy!

        1. LE

          Old bakelite dial phone what I call “the murder weapon” the handset alone is over 1 lb.

    4. LE

      I want a world where where the techHaving been using tech since the 1970’s quite frankly I’d rather have a world where I can get the handyman, plumber, electrician or employee to show up when they are supposed to do so and then do high quality work. I am already super efficient personally compared to how business used to have to be done (with landlines, no computers, faxes and “receptionists”). [1] Do I love having all of these electronics? Of course I do. And I probably get more out of it than most people. But don’t think for a second that this type of tech is really more important than it really is or perhaps just a gimmick. I’d love to be able to have two cell phone numbers on one phone but if I need to carry two phones I will carry two phones. I love the fact that I can enter my car and start it w/o a key but quite frankly I was fine before I could do that.[1] And who can forget 36 exposures on a roll of film.

    5. JamesHRH

      You are turning into my favourite ‘bleeding from the ears due to pushing the envelope of applicable tech compression’ person Twain.My first ‘mobile phone’ was a Motorola brick with a car package (ahead of my time on the handsfree angle). This one day in 1991, I drove to work in Calgary while talking to a guy in England who was driving home from work.It was like magic.

      1. Twain Twain

        Ah so my version of magic is this… True hands free…Now, the advantage of being a product person and creative dev is I can make the tech fun whilst it does magic.The fun factor is as much me as the bleeding edge. You’ve noted how ridiculously cheerful I am, :*).Plus I am the first person in the world who had the mad idea to send a tweet purely by a gesture in thin air and got it working.Mad ideas => magic for the masses.I’m following in the best traditions of inventors like Alan Kay: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

  10. blamarca

    You should check out Line 2 (formerly Toktumi), the San Francisco-based company that pioneered WiFi calling and the ability to put a 2nd line on your smartphone so that you don’t have to carry 2 phones. (www.line2.com) I have used it for 5 years now and it such a great tool to have when traveling internationally.

  11. Abhijit

    This might change with the new releases of each OS. Google Now with On Tap won’t work on iOS and Siri proactive will only work with iOS and will be device specific. The force touch in iOS will make it even more proprietary and at the same time intuitive on iOS. Get ready to pick one device and OS soon 🙂

  12. Mario Cantin

    I’m even more afflicted : I carry two IOS phones. I like the form factor of the iPhone 5 the most, and so I use it mostly for calls and listening to podcasts; and I use the 6+ for visual content. At times I simply use whichever is closest for whichever function.I text friends and family on one phone, and business clients on the other.On the one hand, it is a nice setup, but on the other hand it feels over the top and dysfunctional; particularly when my wife asks me to take out the garbage and I take two phones with me to do that…

  13. falicon

    You might be able to virtualize the number via a Twilio hack (but you would prob. have to use one of their numbers as your primary number).

  14. timber8

    More of this problems pls 🙂

  15. JTio

    I’ve been on Fi for a few weeks now and really love how I don’t have to worry about coverage anymore. I seem to get it no matter where I am.My only complaint is I can’t forward a GVoice number to it. I hope Google fixes that soon.

  16. LE

    I was finally fed up with the 2 bars that I get at my office with AT&T and found that they are running a lower price for the microcell by actually picking up a phone and calling them (with the intention of getting one for free):http://www.att.com/att/micr…The new cost is $150 and they give you a $75 rebate. So net $75. These are actually going for over $300 on Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/AT-Mi…I believe tmobile has a similar product.

  17. JaredMermey

    I am considering getting my first iPhone for the “commiditization reason.” Not only do apps and their respective data move across OSs, but the UXs have become incredibly similar.

  18. David Messenger

    Don’t think anyone likes carrying two phone but SO many people are – one for work and one for personal. The problem is that the mobile carriers have done nothing to enable anything beyond the hardware-driven view of one device = one phone number.Google Voice has been the only option for a while and although it solves some problems it’s a pretty broken user experience, especially now buried within Hangouts.That’s why we founded Mast Mobile – we enable two numbers on one device with native dialer/sms experience and apply the intelligence on which number to use for which call in the cloud. As Twain Twain says – the “TECH MAGIC SIMPLY HAPPENS” finally for voice/sms.It’s the first ‘one phone’ solution that get’s rid of desk phones and allows you to manage work and personal numbers on one device.Let me know if you’d like to try it!

  19. kenberger

    you know i’ve long advocated carrying 2 phones. Another big benefit is you now have two batteries: if it’s 5pm and you know you’ll be out late, put 1 phone in airplane mode (or off) and have it be the reserve phone for the evening.you also know that porting your Tmo # to GV will totally solve the issue re 1 phone being default for calls and texting– before you shout back your reluctancy, keep a plan that you can always port *back* to Tmo if you want (although you should confirm this possibility first with both services. They both claim to allow it).Once you port, this is pretty elegant: you simply take the Hangouts app on both phones and tick “Ring this phone when my GV# (which will then be the tmo # everyone already knows for you) is called”. This also provides lots of free US calls (including while overseas).Until we have an “enum” or other identity type of solution, the phone number we carry will always be custodianed by some company. Yours is a decision on whether that should be Tmo or Google for now.

  20. Greg Cohn

    There’s no reason the phone number can’t operate in exactly the same way Snapchat and Twitter do, ie tied at the account level, virtualized to the device(s), accessed by app. (Burner hasn’t productized for this use case, but it works effectively this way for texting.)One challenge is that most people get their numbers and devices from carriers and in ways that are tied to their network connectivity. So, if you port a number to a service like ours, Google Voice, etc, it normally triggers an account cancellation with the outgoing carrier and possibly a termination fee unless you manage that carefully. Because every outgoing carrier is different, it’s tricky to scale this on the inbound side without a lot of manual process.Another challenge is that, on the iPhone at least, the native phone app is inaccessible to developers.This is obviously all changing fast, happily, given increasingly ubiquitous wifi — what the carriers hilariously refer to as “unlicensed spectrum” — and new data connectivity options.

  21. Semil Shah

    Would disagree with this conclusion: “What this experience has taught me is the device and OS almost don’t matter anymore.” As Apple moves toward more platform lock-in, ability of apps to integrate core sensors (M8, for instance) or interact with external triggers (like iBeacon) it will start to matter a great deal. Apple Pay is an early example of that.

    1. fredwilson

      i don’t use any of that shit because it would lock me insame reason i won’t move to Fi until its on every phone

      1. Semil Shah

        But you wouldn’t actively use M8 chips or iBeacons directly – the apps would, and they would enable new experiences not possible with Android. Happy to chat about it some time, this is more core level stuff with how the apps are built vs cross platform capabilities.

  22. Roger Toennis

    This is the first beginnings of a future where we don’t really have “personal devices”.The future is a 100% cloud based experience. We will move around the world “kiosking” using handhelds and/or wearables and/or tablets and/or laptops and/or going to “Cloud Cafe’s”(TM)Cloud Cafe’s will be where we rent mini-privacy-cubicles to get at our “life in the cloud” with big dedicated 2D/3D/Holo screens and better human body to computer input devices that we don’t want to carry.Everywhere you go you will have one or more of these “cloud kiosking” options; some mobile and carried and others stationary and used in walk up fashion or rented in realtime, like Uber.It will look a lot like what Joachim Phoenix’s character in movie “Her” experienced. That movie nailed the future of our hyperconnected lives.Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

  23. dan_malven

    A friend of mine who works at AT&T says they’re developing a service that can have two phone numbers going into the same device. So people who need separate numbers for work and personal will be able to do it with one device. Not sure how they’ll maintain corporate-level security on the device for all the data apps….that’s probably why it hasn’t launched yet…but I gotta believe they’re working on it. It’s just too ripe of a problem for it to not get solved

  24. Dan G

    I carry 2 phones – a verizon wireless galaxy nexus and 2013 motox with AT&T. I wish there’s a dual-sim phone that works with VZW. To me, havingan older device matter less these days. My primary, the moto, doesn’t feel thatmuch less capable than my girlfriend’s Note 3. Moto does pretty mucheverything, just a bit slower, but I rarely notice. To me, it comes down largelyto more affordable price and decent capabilities.I find most newer apps to be pretty useless- it usuallytakes time and more development before I download an app again. Call me a lateadopter if I only recently downloaded Bambuser, but most people I know reallyonly have Facebook and Google apps on their phones.

  25. Jason Dea

    With most of the function of a phone now residing in the cloud, I suppose the big opportunity now is simply the fashion and aesthetic value of the device itself on the high end, and just good enough dumb terminals on the low end. Though given the breakdown of iPhone vs Android sales I guess we’re already there, or close.

  26. Content Rifi

    I’ve found that if the reason for having two phones is to have a business line and a personal one, that cloud phone service apps like Line2 are awesome. The app has all the featured benefits of having two phones but on one device. You can set it up to have an alternative phone number, mailbox, auto attendent, etc sent to a different line. Worth a shot! You can find more info about them here: http://www.line2.com

  27. Turtles173

    Hey there guys, and the musings of a VC in NYC, I too was musing this a while back and decided to take the challenge on!Check us out at http://www.strone.co. We are a hardware solution …. you leave your sim in our device, you download our android / ios / browser, and hey presto, calls, SMS and voicemail all sent to you on your own device so you can choose at the other end how you want to stay connected. For example, I was in the US a month ago, left my Australian sim in the Strone: Roam, landed in the US, bought a great (and cheap) $30 data sim for my Samsung, hot spotted my Ipad and had the best of all worlds. Stayed connected on my phone number across multiple devices and had awesome data without the ridiculous cost and inconvenience my carrier was going to charge.We have had all sorts of devices ring at the same time during our testing, which was really cool.