ShoreTel, the unified communications systems and IP telephony vendor, has released an IOS dock for devices that, when working with the company’s softphone app, has the device become a desktop speaker phone.
Jamie Romanin, managing director of Shoretel ANZ, said that the dock was developed to acknowledge the fact that mobile devices have become the first choice for many employees and so wished to work on the main limitations; speaker phone capability and battery life, in particular.
The dock has been designed so that it can work with the firm’s Mobility app. This, in turn, can work with its IP telephony systems. All that the user has to do is insert their iPad or iPhone into the dock’s cradle. This launches the Mobility app which allows the speakerphone and dialpad on the dock to begin to charge the phone.
The iPad and Mobility app continue to work normally, which allows the user to set conferences up using the Shoretel conferencing service, or use other applications while another call is taking place.
Presently, only Apple’s older 35 pin connection is supported. However, Romanin said that by the end of the year, the latest Lightening connection would also be catered for. Support for Android devices is also being lined up. This is more challenging, however, due to Android’s multiple versions and devices having various connector configurations. He said:
“We focused on iPhone and iPad because they are bigger than anything else, but we recognise the trend and we are working tirelessly on developing something for Android.”
“Android presents some challenges. We have some unique solutions to address those and we expect to see an Android docking station towards the end of the year.”
More recent devices for Blackberries and Androids are able to take advantage of the dock thanks to Bluetooth pairing. In that mode, however, the dialpad remains inactive. Romanin stated that the firm was still working on Blackberry compatibility.
