X-Lite, The Blog

** You can download a new version of the X-Lite beta by clicking here **

Apparently the last version expired sometime on the weekend, so we’re currently building a new one that should be ready in another hour or so. If you were affected by this, we apologize. That being said, please do not rely on any beta version for anything critical — the beta versions are simply meant for us to solicit feedback and work on a few bugs. It is not a guaranteed product, and will undoubtedly be buggy.

Please check back later today and hopefully the new build will be ready.

Some of you have probably noticed a new button on the last beta of X-Lite 4.0. It’s located in the toolbar area, and is on the far right. This button will bring up the new X-Lite dashboard, where we plan to introduce a few new web-based features in the near future.

Right now, you can search for local companies in various companies, browse the CounterPath store on Amazon, view this blog, and also access our support forum. We’re going to be trying to add a few features in this area that we think will help people use X-Lite. One of the main benefits of this approach is that we can continue to make adjustments to the features in this area without having people download a new version each time to utilize some of them.

If you’ve registered X-Lite as your default SIP handler during the install process, you should be able to place calls directly from the dashboard. We’re going to be improving the functionality of this feature at some point, and will hopefully allow people to store contact lists, call history and other information in these panels.

Feel free to browse around. We’ll undoubtedly be refining this content in the near future, but the dashboard will definitely be in the new X-Lite 4.0.

If you want to check out the store, you can visit this link. You can also purchase accessories from now on by using the link on the sidebar.

Here’s a relatively new build for X-Lite 4.0. This version contains only bug fixes. As I mentioned in another post, we’re still modifying the look and feel, and will be releasing a new version with UI enhancements soon.

Download the Windows version here.

We whipped together a neat little mashup to show everyone where all our X-Lite users are currently located. Hundreds of thousands of people use our product each and every hour, and we thought it would be pretty cool to show where they all were.

If you’d like to take a look, head on over here to take a look.

Sorry for the delay in posting everyone. It’s easy to work up quite the appetite changing the world, and most of us spent the long weekend up here refilling ourselves with turkey dinner instead of blogging. That said, we’re back at it and continuing to do improvements with X-Lite.

First off, thanks everyone for all of the feedback so far with regards to our new X-Lite version. Lots of people emailed and said they absolutely loved it. A few people were concerned that the UI looked a little flat, and I just wanted to let everyone know that we’re making changes as we speak. Hopefully I’ll be able to post something to the blog here in the next week or so allowing people to test it out.

I’ll also be posting a slight refresh for X-Lite 4.0 shortly (this will not include the new UI elements, but contains a few bug fixes), so look for that today or tomorrow.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please drop me a line. I’m also working on a real-time map of where X-Lite users are located, so everyone can see the usage from the blog. Look for that shortly as well.

What do you get when you merge one of the world’s most popular free softphones with the world’s most widely used open-source PBX? You get a whole lot of awesome, that’s what you get.

A couple of people from the CounterPath team are currently down in Arizona demoing a beta version of the new X-Pro for Asterisk that will be released shortly. X-Pro for Asterisk is based on the same X-Lite technology that everyone knows and loves, except that it also it comes with the ability to auto-provision against Asterisk PBXs. Included in each distribution will be five free licenses of X-Pro for Asterisk that can be used at no charge. PBX administrators will also have the ability to manage additional licenses directly from our website, making it extremely easy to configure or add new extensions.

For more information about X-Pro for Asterisk, or to sign up to the beta program, please visit the official X-Pro for Asterisk home page. For a limited time, approved members of the beta program will be granted an additional ten licenses for use with Asterisk, so make sure you sign up if you’re interested in participating.

Here’s a video of Mark discussing the new X-Pro down at Astricon in Arizona. Also featured at around the half-way point is Derek (affectionately called D-Rock around the office). Enjoy!

Some of you have already downloaded the release candidate for our X-Lite 4.0 product below. We’ve gotten some great feedback so far, and expect that the number of people downloading it will continue to increase over the next week or so. We’re trying to set an official date for the launch sometime in the next few weeks, but the actual date will depend on open bugs and some timing with various other departments here. But it will hopefully be sometime in late September.

We’re currently working on a couple cool features, one of which is a media/entertainment center. From there, you’ll be able to search for local businesses, watch some online programming, and hopefully find some local ISPs or VOIP providers that will work for X-Lite. These features might not make it into the 4.0 release (although we’re trying), but something should be hopefully out in the near future. It’s still a work in progress, and we’re playing with what pages and information that will be included, but it’s going to provide an easy-to-update area for us that can put a lot of exciting features into. So stay tuned!

Considering there are hundreds of thousands of downloads of X-Lite each and every month, we obviously have a pretty substantial user base. We have a fairly good idea of how people are using it, but I thought I’d ask the question anyways.

So, let me present the first in a series of polls here. If you don’t find that you fit into one of the categories below, or if you are in the “still playing around with it” category, then please drop us a comment with some further details.

 Loading ...

Today we posted a link to the release candidate for a pretty major update to our X-Lite product. X-Lite version 4.0 has a completely new look and feel compared to the previous version of X-Lite, and is based on the same skinning engine that is used in our Bria product.

In terms of the audio and video, the majority of the functionality is the same as the previous product. So essentially it’s the same product most of you have grown to know and love, just with a new look and feel.

One of the main differences with X-Lite’s user interface compared to Bria is that we’ve continued the tradition of making X-Lite dialpad-centric (since we still get a great deal of positive feedback about that configuration). There’s also a full address book, allowing drag and drop calling as well as calling by name.

We’re still tweaking the skin and adjusting a few things, so I wouldn’t be surprised if what we ultimately release is slightly different than what you see here. But since we figure we’re pretty close we thought we’d give people a preview.

We have a pretty exciting road-map in place for X-Lite, so stay tuned for a few more releases over the next little while.

If you want to try it out, feel free to download the release candidate and play around.

We’ve been meaning to start a blog here at CounterPath for approximately three years now. Unfortunately, it’s been quite the rollercoaster ride here for the past few years, and only recently have any of us really had a chance to stop and catch our breath. 

As everyone knows, X-Lite is one of our flagship products, even though we’ve provided it free of charge.  Go anywhere in the world where voice over IP is used (which is pretty much everywhere these days), and chances are you’ll run into our software. I’ve seen it in Internet cafes in Costa Rica, at coffee shops in Vancouver, call centers in Boston, and even in VOIP testing labs in Japan.  That’s something we’re obviously proud of, and something we intend to make sure continues on in the future.

We have lots in store for X-Lite in the short term, so check back here every day or so to see what we’re cooking up. If you have a RSS reader, make sure you subscribe to our feed.

It’s been a while since we’ve made any significant changes to X-Lite, and we’re all looking forward to what X-Lite is going to evolve into over the next little while.