I am currently an App Store whore.
I’ve been downloading insanely lately in hopes that I become the one billionth downloader and win an Apple TV and the works. And of course Skype and Fring has been one of them, especially, check this out: EU considering ban on Carrier VOIP filtering.
But I call back to Singapore almost every day, so this really helps me save alot.
(1) Skype… of course!
Skype was released to much fanfare, it being one of the most well-known VOIP solutions. With Skype, over WiFi, you can:
- Make Skype-to-Skype calls
- Make SkypeOut calls
- Message your contacts in Skype
And everything is done such that you can even check out your contacts in your address book to call! I tried making a few calls, and for some reason when my other VOIP fails me, Skype is always almost the most reliable thing to count on. Of course there is a tiny charge to call to Singapore, but 0.02USD/minute isn’t too much.
(2) Fring
Fring, kind of integrates everything, from MSN to Twitter to Skype to ICQ to.. everything! How horrified I was when I realized that of all the networks listed, I actually had everything! Well, it was kind of funny to sign on to everything, something like Trillian or Meebo or the all-in services. No seriously. I think it just means how connected I am to the Web.
Not all the “add-ons” as they call it are supported with Voice Calls though, Only Skype, MSN and Google Talk, which is fair enough for most people. Similarly, it allowed chatting to your buddies on your buddy list, having a history and the works.
Now, I finally saw two things which were super awesome which I didn’t notice before. In the UI of the Dialer as you can see above, there are three buttons!
Which means: They support a whole list of SIP, including VoipStunt, which is insanely cheap because for the fact that I call for free to landlines and mobiles in Singapore for a huge number of days for only 10EUR (You get to spend this 10EUR as well, on other things like sms, or calls to paid countries). Now VoipStunt isn’t the greatest, because they like to change their call charges and policies without telling, but as long as you check on that often you would probably not incur too big a charge. Furthermore, their sister sites, which all belong to the same company, like VoipBlaster, SmartVoip, probably has something to the country you are calling to. So technically I could call over WiFi, for free!
The other two buttons are cellular and SkypeOut. Of course there is only one qualm about this, which is you could enter an expensive international number, and press cellular instead of SIP or SkypeOut. By accident. Quite unfortunately, I couldn’t find access to the address book from the UI, but since most of the time people call less than five common numbers all the time it should not be a great issue to just check history.
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In the quest for the search for the great VOIP App, I also checked out TruPhone and iCall. Since TruPhone was something like Skype I decided to just now get onto another VOIP provider. And since I already had an SIP, Fring was the way to go. With Skype as the sort-of backup. Now if only they supported a better sms system so that I could contact my brother who’s in army camp with a cameraless good-ole’ fashioned phone. Yeah, back then, phones were only meant to make calls.
Winner: Fring (then Skype, a close second)
