FriendCaller Blog

In the brand new versions of our iPhone / iPod touch and iPad apps FriendCaller 3 and 3 Pro a revolutionary feature was integrated – the Dial Assistant! But what is this new dial assist and why it simplifies making worldwide calls from the scratch?

Michael Knecht, CTO C2Call

In order to know the advantages exactly I spoke with our CTO Michael Knecht. He’s the lead developer of the FriendCaller iPhone applications.

What was the main reason to invent the dial assistant?

We saw that many people didn’t know how to dial an international number. And especially people from different countries are used to different dialing schemes. People from the U.S. tend to dial 011 and then the international country code, while people from Europe dial 00 or + and then the international country code. Also domestic calls are different between the U.S. and Europe.

For example domestic calls in Germany starts with 0 and the area code, while in the U.S. the domestic calls starts with 1 and the area code or the area code only. So there was enough room for confusion to the user.

So, and how does this dial assist solve this problem?

We solved that problem in multiple ways. First of all the new dialer has learned to follow the users standard behavior depending on the country the user is coming from. The U.S. user is now allowed to dial 011 for international calls or 1 for domestic calls, while the European user is allowed to dial 00 or +.

We also analyze the entered phone number while the user is typing to display the destination country and destination area or city. With this information the user can check whether he dials the correct destination.

Secondly, if the user still don’t know how to enter an international number, he can choose the assistant to enter that number into a form where country code, area code and local numbers have separate input fields. The user can choose the country from a country selection dialogue and the area code is automatically checked against our global area code database to show the destination as soon as a correct area code has been entered.

Benefit also from the great improvements made by the new dial assist and get the best available VoIP app FriendCaller 3 Pro – awarded from iTunes Rewind 2010 as a top grossing app.

FriendCaller is recognized by German’s leading weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche online edition. Their point of view, shared by many: Most parts of the Internet commerce is dominated by large corporations like Google, Ebay or Amazon and newcomers have to create new categories like Facebook or Twitter did or have to take on the giants by providing better and cheaper service, superior user experience or delivering an establish service idea with a special twist like C2Call with FriendCaller.

In their point of view Michael Knecht, C2Call CTO and me, C2Call CEO, started out backed by Ex-Skype Investor Bill Draper to attack Skype by pioneering browser based VoIP: Much easier to use, nothing to install and enabling really spontaneous conversation through a simple mouse-click.

I find this article well written, Matthias Hohensee is well known for his excellent silicon valley reports. However, in our point of view we do not compete with Skype, they have pioneered VoIP for home use, we simply take Internet Telephony one step further and make it even easier and more spontaneous to use. Our browser based technology creates new application through more open social interactions through the click-to-call approach, something a closed user system like Skype can not do. There it is a must that both parties first install and configure skype, get an user ID, exchange these ID and confirm their online relationship before calling.

The click-to-call (C2Call) FriendCaller approach is simple, only one party has to be a FriendCaller user, the Internet call with the other party is established through a link that can be send via email, IM, posted on a blog or anywhere else on the internet. You can start using it here: FriendCaller.com.

Martin Feuerhahn

After FriendCaller was referred by many well-known blogs worldwide, even got a report in a local newspaper, last week a team of the german TV station called WDR visited us in our office in Werl.

For us it was definitely very interesting to see how a television team works.
Our CTO Michael Knecht was interviewed extensively about FriendCaller and they have filmed such typical scenes of the office everyday.
So here a picture of the TV team:

This TV story is well aired in a few weeks and we will of course post the video here.

After C2Call in recent weeks by the financing round of $ 2 million from well-known US investors and the crossing of the 1 million user mark could generate worldwide buzz, now a local newspaper reported on our company.

C2Call CTO Michael Knecht was interviewed and was able to closely examine the company’s philosophy. Thus, one of the main objectives of FriendCaller, not technical-affine users to enter the Voice over IP technology easy as possible, although VoIP, in addition to very cheap fares, especially abroad, has many other advantages, the market until now is still very small.

A quote from the article: “Whether, we in a few years all use this technology, Michael Knecht believes open: ‘This also depends on the network operators’.” The behaviour of the net operators is really a hot topic , but we hope to continue the VoIP freedom.
Especially our iPhone and Android Apps be acknowledged.
So many thanks to the Westfalenpost for this article, with which many people are reached, which have not yet heard of us.