Since the launch of IPhone 3G, developers have been racing to come up with new applications for their big break. I found this is a rather interesting phenomenom, where developers from all over the world give IPhone 3G a lot of attention as never before. It was always been the case where in-house developers came up with application under companies' guideline.
Steve Jobs firmly announced that VoIP application is allowed on IPhone, but ONLY on WiFi network. Came along Fring, a free mobile internet service community,who developed Fring an application to let IPhone users get connected to popular instant messenger network like Gtalk, MSN Messenger, Skype, Twitter , AIM and Yahoo!.
At first,IPhone users would say: "oh, sweet, we can chat, text message, using WiFi network with our buddy list." With a closer look, Skype is the keyword we should pay more attention to. Skype has not come up with native application for IPhone. May be it's under development, or may be they just don't care about IPhone users, no one knows.
Anyway, now, we have IPhone, we have Fring, and we have Skype. If you start connecting the dots, IPhone users can have free VoIP calls or relatively inexpensive international calls. How so? In the nutshell, use IPhone on a free WiFi network, download Fring application from Apple Apps Store, sign up an account with Skype, and voila! You get yourself free calls to others skype users. This would be a good way around for those who want to save money on long distance or international calls, but would not want to invest on actual VoIP service.
If you are an IPhone user and a regular long distance and international caller, this setup would actually work for you perfectly.Give it a try and let us know what your experience.
Comments
I tried it - almost succeed
Mon, 11/17/2008 - 11:30 — jokoAs an early IPhone adopter, I am really interested to find out if this trick would work.
I have the original IPhone and tried using both Fring and Skype. Fring's installation was a walk in the park. Its a great app for keeping all the IM services I use in single app.
best thing is, it's free. Fring works on both WiFi or even EDGE, which is really convinient. VoIP only works on WiFi.
Setting up Skype is also very straight forward. I'm really interested to use SkypeOut to call friends and family who are not online all the time. Skype has pretty good rates on International rates.
The only problem I have is my router. I had it for 6-7 years, which is really ancient for wireless router. It's a B-router, which works fine with laptop or computer, but for reasons unknown, it's won't work well with IPhone. Whenever I get connected, I get super slow connection. I was advised to get new router.
I'll try it again and post my experience.