Phones/Apps That Support Two Numbers

[Erik]

Does anyone on the board have personal experience with phones that have two SIM cards or an app that allows a phone (bonus if it’s an iPhone) to support two phone numbers so that one phone can have a business number from which texts are captured and archived and a personal number from which they are not? If so, what phone or what app and would you recommend it? I can google this, so I'm not asking anybody to research it for me, but it would be very helpful for me to hear from someone who has personal experience and very, very helpful if you're a really smart IT guy and can point me towards an app that's user friendly and secure. Thanks.

[Peally]

Google already provides something that will basically do what you need, Google Voice. It's available to anyone in the US, you set a phone number you'd like to use and you can optionally have any texts sent to that number automatically forwarded to your current phone. Alternatively you can use their app or the Google Voice page in a browser to view all past texts.

Pretty handy if you want to do something like Craigslist; you can avoid giving out your actual phone number to people.

https://voice.google.com/

[orionz06]

I use Google Voice for the business stuff and the standard phone app for personal. Works well for my needs.

[voodoo_man]

+1 for voice.

[Erik]

Thanks! I'll look into that.

[rob_s]

I use Google Voice for the business stuff and the standard phone app for personal. Works well for my needs.

I was doing that for a long time but I thought they phased on the google voice stuff? Or somehow changed it?

[Erik]

Is google voice secure? Is that even an intelligent question or should I be asking something more specific?

[Peally]

Define "secure". It's a Google app service, so like everyone else I'm sure they're sticking their noses in your business on some level if only to advertise useless shit to you. If you're working for the NSA you might want to go with a 3rd party vendor that does this sort of thing exclusively.

They have a privacy policy but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them (like any company though, they're not exclusive there). Despite anything they say your data will still be housed on their servers.

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

[Erik]

Secure in this context means use of the service is (i) secure from access other than by the service provider (hacking, interception) and (ii) compliant with state and federal privacy requirements for businesses that have access to personally identifiable information and may use the service to transmit that information. Ultimately that's a question to explore with the service provider, I think.

[Peally]

I can't help you there. I'm the guy that just clicks "OK" on all the software agreements I ignore.