News: fringOut Now Available for iPhone
Previously only available for Android and Symbian S60, fring’s phone service (VoIP) has recently become available for the iPhone as well. This gives iPhone users yet another way to skirt around AT&T’s system to make cheaper international calls or be able to call home when you’re overseas without paying crazy international roaming charges (you still need some kind of internet connection on your phone, but a hotel or airport wifi should work great).
You can check fringOut’s rates here.
Remember that fring also lets you make free ‘calls’, audio and video, to your friends who also use fring and is available on Symbian, Android and iPhone currently. And don’t forget their recent addition of Dynamic Video Quality (can’t wait to test that out!).
[Sources iLounge via PocketNow, and here’s an iTunes link as well]
Tips: Video Calling with Qik and fring
PocketNow.com gave a good rundown a while ago of some of the issues with running video chat programs such as Qik and fring.
Read more about it on PocketNow.com’s article.
News: fring Adds Dynamic Video Quality
Fring was one of the forerunners in mobile video chat, I believe they even predate iPhone’s Facetime (July 2010 versus October 2010?). But one thing that’s plagued most mobile video chat apps is the bandwidth requirement. Facetime requires a wifi connection, but some have gotten it to work over 3G with some success. Others allow 3G/4G connections, but with varying degrees of success. Fring, as far as I know, is one of the first to add (or at least tout) dynamic quality adjustments based on available bandwidth. This is big. This means that you may not always get an amazing HD video chat session, but you’ll get something.. and sometimes that’s better than nothing.
Hopefully other video chat mobile apps such as Tango, Yahoo Messenger (with video chat plugin), and Qik will follow suit and allow some kind of dynamic quality adjustment so it’s not an all-or-nothing choice of whether to use video chat.
[Sources: Fring blog & FAQ, Android Guys, Engadget, Talk Android among others]
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