Monthly Archive for March, 2010

The FriendCaller Android app is now available

Published on March 26, 2010 by socialmedia in Android, Android app, Browser Based VoIP, Tips and Tricks and VoIP Freedom. 1 Comment Tags: .

Now the FriendCaller app is finally available for Android. After a sucessfull test trial, you can download our app in the Android Market or you can simply scan the barcode to directly load the FriendCaller app on your mobile phone.

The new Android application works in WiFi zone and over 3G/UMTS connection. The advantages of Android systems enables you to run the FriendCaller app as a service in the background, lasting and direct accessibility is thereby guaranteed.

Of course you can also use our patented CallMe-Links with this Android version. This allows you instantly free calls to anybody on the Internet. The rates for calls to landlines or mobile phones are very inexpensive worldwide by high quality. You can also easily import your Android contacts. The FriendCaller Android app supports Android 2.0 and 1.6, however also useable with Android 2.1.

Get the FriendCaller Android app now for free to enjoy your mobile VoIP freedom!

Get the new FriendCaller facebook app now!

Published on March 26, 2010 by socialmedia in Browser Based VoIP, Features, Tips and Tricks, VoIP Freedom, facebook and facebook web phone. 2 Comments Tags: .

At the beginning of this year facebook did some changes to its plattform which makes it finally possible for us to launch our FriendCaller app for facebook.

After a successful trial period, the facebook app is now available for making free calls in facebook. To do so, simply visit the facebook page of our application and click on the left sidebar on “Go to application“. FriendCaller facebook WebPhone will launch itself after you allow the application to interact with you, and the Java.

The facebook webphone is pretty easy to use, howsoever, if at any point you get stucked, see at the right panel in the app, and there you will find a simple guide which explains how to use the facebook application in 4 simple steps. Of course you can also use your existing WebPhone account from FriendCaller.com, or if you don’t have one yet, you can just create a new one within the application itself.

To always have immediate access to your FriendCaller WebPhone on your facebook page, we recommend you bookmark the application better create a bookmark. On the application page there is the button “add bookmark” for this. With a click on the appropriate button you will have the access to your personal CallMe-Links, and with them you can easily talk to your friends for free or just add your contacts with a click on the “webmail import” button. You can also share your personal CallMe-Links to be posted on your faecbook profile and on your friends’ walls. Of course you can directly call from facebook to regular landlines or mobile phones anywhere in the world, thus saving money with our extremely cheap call rates.

So now you can finally, and of course for free, call your facebook friends and you won’t even have to leave the page. The best part is, your friend don’t need to add the application; and the calling partner will not have to register or download anything. This makes communication between you and your friends easier than ever!

Go to our facebook WebPhone

Visit our facebook fan page: facebook.com/friendcaller

VoIP Touch Tone Dialing makes customer service more efficient

Published on March 24, 2010 by Shabaz in Features, Tips and Tricks, VoIP Freedom, iPad and iPhone and iPod VoIP. 4 Comments

Dial pad keysWith the deruglation of the telephone industry in the United States in 1984, there was a brand new idea of Touch Tone dialing, which replaced the traditional rotary dial by a numbered keypad. And within two years time, every house in the US was installed with a touch tone keypad telephone.

This new feature of dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) switching enabled the subscribers to punch in the numbers during a call, making it possible for the big ventures to start telephony customer service relationship with their customers. When a user calls the hotline, the automated exchange system requests the user to punch in the desired number or symbol for a corresponding service. This enabled the companies to cut down man-power by large and in only an unresolved problem, the customer was referred to a human customer representative.

Call Center RepWith the recent abmormal boost of Internet usage, the traditional telephone is now getting replaced with the VoIP enabled phones. Thanks to the 3G VoIP freedom, Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users are now able to save more by using cheap and high quaity VoIP service providers’ apps instead of paying high calling rates to their cellular subscribers.

Howsoever, most of these VoIP providers connects a user via many interexchanged low budget and truncated circuits, which restricts the user to punch in any touch tone once the connection is established. Sometimes, the call centers connects the dialer to a customer sales representative after a while when the user fails to enter any key selection, but most of the times the dialer is requested to enter a numbered key to forward the calls to a customer service representative or to his desired activity (like in case of a bank Hotline, a customer would like to enter his/her pin code via telephone dialpad to know the account balance, or to know the stock rates, etc.).

Fotunately, the upcoming release of FriendCaller will enable you to pop up a dialpad during a call, so that you can punch in the numbered keys or symbols as requested by the telephonic automated response system. You may see the small grey colored dial pad icon on the right side (highlighted in red). Clicking on it presents you a nice dialpad for active user input during a call.

Friendcaller voip touch tone dialpad

Touch tone voip dialing

And, yes, FriendCaller has its own dedicated VoIP channels, that makes it unique in providing a true high quality VoIP experience, and now with it, VoIP touch tone dialing makes cutomer service relationship more efficient and harmonic.

iPad seekers – Mark your calendars for 3rd April

Published on March 22, 2010 by Shabaz in Android, Features, Technology News, VoIP Freedom, iPad and iPhone and iPod VoIP. 0 Comments

Apple ipad 3g wi-fiFinally, after a long tiresome patience, Apple has decided to market its new line of enlarged iPhone version, The iPad. In US on Saturday April 3, Apple presents the iPad in its Apple retail stores. For a Wi-Fi or a Wi-Fi + 3G model, one needs to pre-order, and on 3rd April, only the Wi-Fi versions can be picked up from the Apple retail stores. As far as the Wi-Fi + 3G version market date is considered, Apple says it will be somewhat in late April. The suggested retail price starts from USD 499.

In a further statement by Apple’s press contact, Natalie Harrison, all the iPad models will be available in late April for the countries other than US (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK).

Update: Due to the huge sale (above 500,000 units sold) in US, the public sale of iPad for European countries and the rest of the world is delayed till 10th of May 2010.

No doubt, we have been waiting for a large screen tablet which can run Mac and iPhone apps from Apple for a long time, and this is it. The iPad promises a lot, but many features are still missing. With technology guys complaining about no camera, no flash player support, no Internet tethering, no USB, and no SD card slot for memory expansion, there is one main missing feature for which all of us were waiting. The ability to do multi-tasking.

Android’s capability of multi-tasking makes it a big competitor for the Apple market. Our FriendCaller Android version can convert an Android phone in to a fully functional VoIP phone, providing endless possibilities of cutting down the subscriber call costs. Howsoever, though we were relieved about the VoIP 3G freedom from Apple on iPhone, but still, like all others we also need our FriendCaller app to run as a background app on iPhone. We were hoping iPad will have the mult-tasking functionality, but, oh well, lets see how much more we have to wait again for this feature. Some says, its a mutual understanding between the chosen Apple’s subscribers and the Apple itself to prevent users from using the Apple iPad and iPhone  as a full featured VoIP phone, while other believe there must be something Apple is still working on… iTable perhaps :P

Anyhow, we love Apple’s products, and indeed 3rd of April is not the date to forget. And yes, you can try the FriendCaller version on the iPad too with an enlarged view and more contacts per view.

FriendCaller’s homecoming to Facebook

Published on March 16, 2010 by Martin in Browser Based VoIP, Features, Tips and Tricks, VoIP Freedom and iPhone and iPod VoIP. 2 Comments Tags: .
FriendCaller facebook webphone

FriendCaller WebPhone on facebook

Last year we started the FriendCaller project to showcase the potential of  the C2Call technology. With FriendCaller we aimed at social networking and especially Facebook. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to talk instantly with all of your friends on facebook straight from your browser? With C2Call this is possible, and surprisingly it doesn’t matter what operating system or browser you use, it is a true one click to call experience. The idea of calling friends via social networks gave the project its name: “FriendCaller”

However, when we tested our first Facebook Beta we realized that the Facebook platform was not ready for us, the wall was too static and lacking notifications, both parties would have to add the Facebook app and open it in the central app pane view, essentially blocking all other activities, thus making spontaneous calls quite impossible.

So we took a detour, in March 2009 we first launched the FriendCaller website (www.FriendCaller.com), a complete browser based VoIP suite and our FriendCaller iPhone and iPod Touch apps. Both of the platforms grew fast, approaching with a million users mark quite early than we have expected, particularly popular due to the free VoIP calls and low cost global phone calls.

Then at the beginning of the year 2010, the Facebook platform introduced more effective ways of notifications and now allow standard requests via users email address. We use email addresses as User-IDs across platforms, so new notifications and email was all we needed to integrate Facebook with our Web Phone and iPhone apps.

Now the next big step for web based communication is close to materialize. We are currently testing our next generation FriendCaller facebook app. Soon, FriendCaller will allow you to talk instantly to your facebook friends and no, we will not force them to add our app or register with us before talking to you. How? You will find out soon! Curious enough? Check our facebook fan page at facebook.com/FriendCaller

It feels like a homecoming, FriendCaller is back, calling all friends for FREE :)

Is Multitasking the next possiblity on iPhone?

Published on March 16, 2010 by socialmedia in Android, Features, General, Technology News and iPhone and iPod VoIP. 0 Comments
multitasking iPhone OS

Multitasking Code Snippet in Springboard.js

Many iPhone users face the problem of the one and the only multitasking function. Howsoever, the iPhone is able to do multitasking, but just for the Apple owned apps (e.g. iPod, Safari, Mail…etc.). The rumors about an early release of multitasking for third-app provider are getting larger.
The upcoming release of the iPhone firmware OS 4.0  includes many lines of code with text-comments that are depending on multitasking. An example for this is the multitasking dialog box as shown in the picture above. A few iPhone app developers say that this code could be just for the selfmade apps from apple. But most hope that it is not.
Lets see, with Android’s capability to do multitasking, will Apple get in to a proper race rather than suing its competitors.
[via 9TO5Mac]

Technology Convergence: The iPhone has done it again!

Published on March 15, 2010 by Martin in Features, Technology News, Tips and Tricks, Travel with iPhone and iPod touch and iPad. 0 Comments

GPSI operate from Taiwan but nowadays I am in Germany for a couple of official tasks. Anyhow, few days back when I arrived here, I was facing the same problem like always; how to avoid the high car rental charges with the GPS navigational system. Normally it costs around € 9.99 per day, but a better idea is to buy a €99 navigation system and use it in any car for life, thus avoiding the additional charges a day when you rent a car.

But, if you have an iPhone, then all you need is a good GPS navigation app with maps. The idea sounds good, and I thought for a moment that instead of buying the €99 navigation system, why not just browse the iTunes app store for a decent app, maybe it will cost less. I was surprised to see that branded apps like Navigon, TomTom, or CoPilot costs in a range of €64 to €89. Add a couple of more euros and you can buy a nice car mount with a charger for your iPhone. This ends up with exactly the same price as that of a good standalone navigation system.

Now, the concept of mobile convergence is usually driven by cost reduction, once a multi-function device cost less than multi single-purpose gadgets, the convergence happens. But not anymore. The iPhone has done it again: TomTom is the No. 5 Top Grossing app in the US iTunes app store, and Navigon being the No. 1 in Germany.  The iPhone voids the concept of mobile convergence, because the consumer is paying a premium for convergence himself.

It will be interesting to see how this applies to the new Apple iPad. Maybe Apple allow its iPad more dynamic technology convergence than the iPhone, and we will be able to get it with pre-installed apps that make a good use of the feautures of the device itself. And yes, by the end of the week, I bought a GPS gadget and am happy with it.

FriendCaller.de

Published on March 11, 2010 by socialmedia in Browser Based VoIP, General, Promos and iPhone and iPod VoIP. 0 Comments Tags: .

Good news for our German speaking users.
Our Homepage Friendcaller.com, which is the only browser-based VoIP provider, is now available in German too and can be found at FriendCaller.de. All pages and features including the iPhone app, web phone and our price lists are now in German also.
For cheap calls and free browser based VoIP calls FriendCaller is just the optimum solution.

CallMe Links – simplifying everyday life for free

Published on March 9, 2010 by socialmedia in Browser Based VoIP, Features, General and Tips and Tricks. 2 Comments Tags: .

I have been surprised various times that in how many ways the  CallMe-links can be used. They not only help me in everyday life, but also when I am at work and I want to talk quickly with my business partner or client. And the best part is that the other party does not need to install any software to receive my calls.
This has saved me a lot of time. Besides the above example, there are infinite ways in which CallMe-links can simplify your life. My children have bookmarked my CallMe link on their Internet browser, and wherever I am, they simply click the bookmark and I can talk with them at no cost. Usually when my younger son hear about release of a new trading card of his favorite cartoon characters, he calls me straight away so that on my way back from office, I would simply buy him the present.
No doubt, using the CallMe-Links is very easy and you can always save money, because its free!

Steve Jobs says: “No!” to iPad Internet tethering

Published on March 7, 2010 by Martin in Features, Technology News, VoIP Freedom and iPad. 0 Comments

No iPad tetheringThe Swedish blog slashhat reports that Steve Jobs answered to the question that whether if the new iPad Wifi versions will support iPhone Internet tethering with one word:

“No!” (with signed: sent from my iPhone).

What do we learn from this?

  1. Our dreams about the freedom of mobile Internet  just experienced a setback after a few encouraging signs like multi operator strategy and the opening of Internet for free by “secondary” iPhone providers like FarEasTone.
  2. Even Steve Jobs  find it cumbersome to change his iPhone signature :P

Source: Slashat