[Frank777]

The phone on my desk (in my home office) has been dying a slow death lately. I've been using it for about 15 years.

I know corded phones are dinosaurs these days. But I went out to a couple of stores to pick up a replacement, and the lack of a great business-level office phone option surprised me. It got me to thinking. Why hasn't anyone made a USB-enabled phone that works with my iMac?

Not from Apple, of course. But a Mac peripherals maker like MacAlly, Belkin or OWC.

It should be easy pickings to take a regular business phone and add a USB port with some custom Mac software.

For example, the phone could record calls on the iMac's hard drive with a press of a button. It could use the Caller ID information of an incoming call and Google the number if it's not in my Contacts. If I set a date and time for a call in my Calendar, it could offer to dial the number for me with one click. It could record voice memos and upload them to the iMac. It could transfer voicemails to the mac for long term storage.

Is there anything like this on the market?

[turtle]

While I like the idea of what you're saying I've not seeing anything like that for home office work. Last I saw it was in a call center I worked at doing tech support.

[PB PM]

The only device I know that kind of does that is Magic Jack's box, which allows you to plug in a standard phone via USB.

[drewprops]

Many years ago Microsoft made a home phone that connected to a Windows PC. We're talking late-90s to mid-2000s.

The commodification of home phones and rise of cellphones killed that market, I suspect.


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[curiousuburb]

Originally Posted by drewprops Many years ago Microsoft made a home phone that connected to a Windows PC. We're talking late-90s to mid-2000s. The commodification of home phones and rise of cellphones killed that market, I suspect. ... ...

Being Microsoft, they probably bought out the only successful companies in that space and screwed up their products, or sold their version at a loss long enough to crush all competition, then screwed them up.

I have heard that Apple is coming up with Wireless charging hardware soon

[Frank777]

I ended up just buying a newer model of my previous business phone.

It's somewhat ironic that the device that sits right next to my Mac on my desk is still the one that's totally disconnected from it.
But I understand that wireless is crushing the wired phone so there's less investment on that front.

I guess with USB-C, you could now make a desk phone that doesn't even need a power adapter.

[Yontsey]

Originally Posted by Frank777 I ended up just buying a newer model of my previous business phone. It's somewhat ironic that the device that sits right next to my Mac on my desk is still the one that's totally disconnected from it. But I understand that wireless is crushing the wired phone so there's less investment on that front. I guess with USB-C, you could now make a desk phone that doesn't even need a power adapter.

What brand and model is it?

[Frank777]

I previously had a Nortel Meridian handset, but of course Nortel is no more.

Nortel made the best phones I've ever used, though they are on the pricey side.

I guess a company called Aastra picked up the pieces from Nortel's crash and burn, and the 9417cw is the latest version.

It's available on Amazon for under $180.

[Yontsey]

Funny enough, that's the same phones I have here for my company. We use to have the Nortel phones too but we've been using that same phone or at least a model that looks exactly like it for years here. Nothing fancy but very straight forward and get's the job done.

[kieran]

My new gig has some crazy new phones that are hooked into Microsoft Lync. There's even a status symbol on the phone that shows your current Lync status, as if that's necessary.

http://www.polycom.com/products-serv...top-phone.html

Way too complicated for me. Just take the damn phone away. I'll use my cell for my 2 calls a week.