With the new fring for iPhone you get lots of fring goodies including 2 way video-calling where you want and with whom you want!

• Face-to-face video calls with friends on their Droids, Nokia (Symbian S60) and other iPhones
• Video calls over 3G or Wi-Fi (Performance over 3G is subject to mobile operators’ 3G coverage & quality)

Use that fancy new front-facing camera for video calls from the beach or from the mountain top (on 3G or Wifi) to your friends on whatever mobile phone they have. So even if they don’t have an iPhone 4 yet, you can see their pretty faces.

So go ahead and video call Elizabeth on her Evo, Ivan on his iPhone, see Ned on his Nokia or Debra on her Droid.

Also, the latest fring for iOS4 on iPhone 3GS & 4 includes loads of improved features including:

• Multitasking so you can be always on and available with fring running in the background and alerting you to new video calls, voice calls or chat without proactively opening fring (just like on all other supported phones).

• New Social Stream: A chronological stream of all tweets, facebook updates, chats and calls, all in one place! Easy cross-community communication and simple sorting capabilities.

• A Smarter address book: simply manages your buddy list, merges contacts and more

Have fun and as always, feedback much appreciated!

The fringTEAM

Break News:

Twitter just went wild with news that MTN is going to launch “uncapped 3G broadband” come 1 June 2010, so I decided to digg deaper and bring you the facts.

MTN South Africa has just announced that they will be introducing “uncapped 3G broadband” from 1 June 2010. This may sound like brilliant news but lets look a little closer before getting excited. The “uncapped” 3G will come with strict fair-usage restrictions and at the end of the day is this new “uncapped 3G” service really as “uncapped” as it sounds?

MTN will launch two packages come 1 June 2010:

1. R 749.00/ month - You get 3GB of 3G data, throttled down to 128kbit/s after using 3GB.
2. R1999.00/month - You get 10GB of 3G data, throttled down to 128kbit/s after using 10GB.

Clearly real “uncapped” data at an affordable rate is still along way off in South Africa.

You can already purchase mobile 3G data from 0.19c/MB when purchasing a 2GB bundle, so 3GB of data is already R583.68 at the standard rate and you are then paying R165.32 for the remaining 128kb uncapped connection after you reach the 3GB cap. So looks like they should be announcing ‘uncapped 128kb connections’ with the purchase of our over priced bundles. You can btw already get 128kb wireless internet connections in South Africa for R299.00 per month which means the MTN offering is R133.68 cheaper per month so lets give them credit where it’s due, the new rate is cheaper than current market prices but they are forcing you to purchase and expensive 3GB bundle, which makes the deal less appealing to the poorer mass market.

The 10GB account also looks much better, however why would you want to pay for 10GB of expensive data. Why don’t they just launch a 128kb connection to market and drop the whole 3GB and 10GB bundle idea. On the 10GB account you are in theory only paying R53.40/month for the 128kb uncapped connection.

I sure hope MTN looks at bringing a ‘uncapped 128kb connection’ to market for under R60.00/month without the end user needing to purchase a 3GB or 10Gb bundle, now that would be revolutionary

It’s going to be interesting to see how Vodacom responds to the new MTN rates. Lets hope Vodacom reads this blog and takes the hint and brings a lower speed cheap connection for the mass market.

fringsters listen up, I have great news for you!

Vodacom has just finished upgrading a huge section of their network (more than 3300 towers across South Africa) to support 14.4 Mbps Internet speeds. As for the rest of the network you guys will have to make due with the speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps on 3G. The great news is that with speeds of between 7.2 and 14.4 Mbps fring calling and video stream quality on the Vodacom network will be vastly better than on other local networks

A little birdy tells me that Vodacom is also testing 21.1 Mbps HSPA services on their network but this will only go live laters. So it looks like there are only good things to come. Watch this space for progress.

Vodacom 14.4 Mbps internet goes live on 1 May 2010

Start video-calling your friends for free, from anywhere, on your mobile phone today!

After fring launched the world’s 1st video calling over Internet on Nokia touch devices, 2 months ago, we heard lots of requests for video on more phones, thus we are adding today video support to most of Nokia’s popular 9.2 series phones, including the ever-popular E71, E51, E66 and more.

Other Nokia device owners, worry not- fring will add video support for even more Nokia devices operating on Symbian 9.3 OS in a week or so…so keep following our blogs for the latest news!

So start practicing on your smile as fring video calling is coming your way in 10, 9, 8….

The fringTEAM

We’re very excited about AT&T’s announcement today (confirmed by Apple) that its 3G wireless network will be open to third-party Internet voice applications on iPhone.

Until now fring users could only use fring on their iPhone over Wi-Fi, so this comes as great news for us and our iPhone fringsters.

fring’s dev team is hard at work, making sure we will be ready to go once 3G iPhone gates are open . We will be live before you can even say “fring for iPhone over 3G on its way!” with the new feature-packed version we released just today… but also over 3G!

fringTEAM

fring’s latest iPhone & iPod touch version (2.0.0.4) is now available on the App Store, with a new look, more integration between social networks, improved voice and much more!

The new version includes a new user profile, which allows you to update your fring nickname, avatar and mood text, and broadcast it back to your IM friends. You can also see your friends’ avatars and mood texts from other networks – currently on Skype, others coming soon.

You can also now use SkypeOut & SIP to call your friends directly from the fring address book with a much clearer line thanks to our voice team’s big effort to improve voice quality!

If that’s not enough we added- copy/paste & linking capabilities to save you time while chatting away with your friends and speakerphone support for all voice calls.

German users, we got some great news for you too – fring on iPhone/ iPod touch is also now available in your native language!

As you can see, we’ve been busy fringbees – improving features, introducing new capabilities and always staying ahead of the pack to continue being the ultimate social community hub for your iPhone/ iPod touch.

So go get the new version today and as always, feedback is much appreciated!

The fringTEAM

fringsters put your hands together for the one and only Nokia 5530 Xpress Music.

This sleek and sexy Nokia handset is now officially available in South Africa and we are excited to announce that fring already lets you take your friends mobile with this great new Nokia device.

Although “Nokia might have been late to the touchscreen game,” it sure is “making up for lost time now by following up the successful 5800 XpressMusic and N97 with the budget 5530 XpressMusic.”

Most of the western world is abuzz after Apple recently introduced the Apple iPhone 3Gs. Here in Africa though things are different. Most of us cannot afford the high tech gadgetry on offer from Apple. I mean lets face it, most people here in Africa are just looking for something cool yet low cost which will do the job and boy oh boy does the Nokia 5530 do just that.

Nokia last night together with the launch of the Nokia 5530 and 5630 Xpress Music also launched “Comes with music.” “The service, which offers consumers a year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue, is now available in South Africa. Comes With Music devices enable the consumer to download an unlimited number of the over 5-million digital tracks available on the South African Nokia Music Store http://music.nokia.co.za for a one year period. In addition, the consumer is able to keep all their downloaded music from the diverse catalogue of international and local artists - even when the service period of one year is over – on both their Comes With Music device and dedicated PC.”

This is why in my humble opinion, companies like Nokia will always have market share in Africa. They are making sure that people of all walks of life are able to groove to the beat on a sexy touch screen device. Thank you Nokia

fringsters if you happen to be one of the lucky few who already has your hands on the Nokia 5530 what are you waiting for download fring today. If you are still thinking of upgrading to a new device, think no more, head over to your nearest cellphone dealer and grab yourself one of these beauties while stocks last.

Note: I will review the Nokia 5530 more closely in the coming weeks.