Q: Why do we need yet another Caller ID or Dialing program?
A: Because no other tool offers comprehensive telephone integration for the Mac. Phone Amego integrates with your phones to detect Call Start, Caller ID, Call Answer, Call End, On Hook, Off Hook and provide remote control to Dial, Answer, Send Touch-Tones, Hangup or Reject Call (when used with appropriate hardware). This affords capabilities other tools can't offer:

(1) Answer or hang up calls from your computer using the speakerphone on your VoIP handset.
(2) Detect and log calls dialed directly from your phone or other extensions.
(3) Block unwanted calls.
(4) Dial a phone number, wait for the remote peer to answer, and then dial an extension.
(5) Send touch-tones to access call features during a call.
(6) Show call status and duration in a consistent heads up display.
(7) See at a glance who in your office is on the phone and who they are talking to
(Multi-line call status).
(8) Log all calls, answered or missed, and their duration (invaluable if you bill for your time).

No other tool for the Mac offers this level of telephone integration (short of running your own PBX) yet that's only half the equation. The other side is integration with software and data on your Mac and the Internet including Contacts, Calendar, Mail, Safari, Google Voice, Growl/Notification Center, Dropbox, Caller ID lookup, CRM, etc. All this plus Phone Amego works with cell phones, landlines, and VoIP while maintaining an uncluttered User Interface. Phone Amego lets you use your Mac(s) as a mini call center.

"As an IT person, I've always been amazed at how lame phone/computer integration is.
This app has changed my mind." - robbosir
Q: What problem is Phone Amego intended to solve?
A: Despite all the changes in telephone technology, people still need to make and receive phone calls while juggling information from multiple sources. Phone Amego is designed to help you use your Mac to be more efficient and in control of your telephone communications.

What's different about Phone Amego is:
(1) It provides full monitoring and control for both dialing and caller ID.
(2) It embraces the iPhone and the Internet.
(3) It is designed to work with many popular phones.
(4) It keeps notes on each call organized by caller in a shared database (lightweight CRM).
(5) It focusses on integrating phones into your Mac based workflow,
not trying to be another phone or answering machine.

Imagine you spend much of your day sitting in front of a Mac (like me). Your phone might be in your pocket, plugged into a charger, or across your desk. When the phone rings, a little window pops up on your Mac's screen to tell you who is calling. If you don't want to answer right now, you can click "End Call" to send the call directly to voice mail, or send a short SMS to say you will call back in 20 minutes.

If a client calls, you can press one button to:
• Bring up your calendar showing your previous calls and next appointment;
• Open the corresponding contact in Address Book, Daylite or other CRM;
• See previous notes for this caller (if any);
• Search for matching Emails from this client;

When new clients call, you can use reverse lookup to confirm subscriber information on the web (name and address for listed telephone numbers).

To place a call, you can click on a number in your Address Book (or Daylite) to have your computer dial it for you, or open the Call window and type the first few letters of the name you want to call. You can dial almost any number that appears on your screen. You can use the Recent submenu to redial or return a call with a single click.

If you have a cordless landline phone, you can enjoy on screen caller ID and click to dial from any Mac on your local area network.

With Phone Amego you can organize your call records in a distributed database and pull up caller information from any networked computer running Phone Amego. Add notes as desired and have them appear automatically on your other computers the next time that person calls.

Phone Amego maintains an easy to review call log. With appropriate hardware, you can do full call accounting for billing or system management.

Google Voice Support
You can dial calls via Google Voice directly from your Address Book. You can send a free SMS using Google Voice to one or more contacts in your Address Book. This is generally much easier than using the small keypad on your phone.

If you are new to Google Voice, the idea is to have one number that rings wherever you go instead of handing out different numbers for where you might be (home, office, cell), and have one place to keep your voice mail. When you call someone, you want them to see your Google Voice number, not the number of where you happen to be calling from (so your cell number remains private).  Phone Amego can take care of this for you when you dial a number from your Address Book.

If you don't have good cell phone reception at home, you can use Google Voice to ring both your cell phone and home phone at the same time, and answer whichever one is more convenient.

If your Mac doesn't have a modem or you are connected via AirPort, you can use Google Voice as a wireless dialer. When Phone Amego dials using Google Voice, it connects over the Internet to ring your phone, and then the phone of the person you are calling. You can dial indirectly from almost any phone you can answer that has a 10-digit U.S. number connected to an outside line, including Voice over IP phones.

Google Voice is not a direct replacement for your phone service, but it may allow you to consolidate your phone services to save you money. For example, if you are a micro business owner, instead of having a separate office phone, you can have a Google Voice number that rings your home and/or cell phone. For outgoing calls, Google Voice offers free nationwide long distance and low international rates (which is one way the service pays for itself). By combining Google Voice with a VoIP service to receive calls, or a Google Talk compabitle adaptor like the OBi110, you can get flexible phone service at very low cost compared to traditional alternatives.

For more examples of using Phone Amego, check out my Blog:
Ask Peter - Phone Amego

Q: Does Phone Amego work with Google 2-step Authentication?
A: Yes, but you'll need to create a "one-time application-specific password" for Phone Amego.

Q: I'm aware that caller ID can appear on each computer that Phone Amego is installed on the same local network. Have you considered this option for an iPhone?
A: Yes, you can do this by using Growl on the Mac and Prowl (a Growl client for iOS) on your iPhone or iPad. It works great and is not limited to your LAN. You can be notified with caller ID on your iOS device whenever your home or office phone rings.