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Reviews / Social Networking
Vonage

Vonage Mobile – Offers FREE Vonage to Vonage Calls iOS or Android

I've been a Vonage customer for a few years now. I use their service for my home office phone line. I don't really have any complaints. The service works fine and the call quality is decent. I remember when Vonage released their 1st iPhone App and the extreme disappointment that many Vonage customers had feeling that the mobile App should allow them to use/connect to the service they were already paying for. I never bothered with their 1st App as I saw no benefit to it. Apparently I'm not alone because that App appears to be no longer available. To their credit, they did release the Vonage Extensions App that does allow existing Vonage subscribers to use their smartphones to make international calls that are tied to their existing Vonage accounts that they already pay for.

Now Vonage is back with a NEW App Vonage Mobile. Vonage Mobile appears to want to compete head to head with Skype for FREE or low cost voice calls. The concept is simple. If you download the App for your mobile device and your friends/family download it for their mobile devices (iOS or Android) you can call each other all you want for FREE. Yes even internationally. Vonage, now you have my attention! Sounds very Skypish at this point. It gets better. If you are calling or receiving calls from a regular Vonage customer those are also FREE. Best of all you don't have to be a Vonage subscriber to use this App.

 

How does the App work?

I set up the App on my iPhone 4s. Once you download and launch it you'll be prompted to activate it. They can either text you or call you with an activation code. For whatever reason I didn't receive the text, so the App offered to call me and read off the activation code. Once I got it setup then it offered to Import my contacts. I let it do this (privacy concerns aside) because not only do I want my contacts in the App but it can identify any existing Vonage phone numbers for your contacts and put a little "V"onage logo next to them. Now you know who you can call for FREE. The next thing I wanted to do was test it! I called a few numbers just to try it and they worked. As a matter of coincidence I'd been meaning to call Vonage customer service to get my Vongage phone adapter replaced at home. I figured why not use the App to make this call. I was shocked to see that their toll-free 866 number was NOT a Vonage number???!!! No worries, because for a limited time you can call any number for FREE! Woot! It was nice that the App offered me a choice to call the number using my regular minutes or Vonage credits. My call was crystal clear. 

 

How does it work on iPod touch or iPad?

After I got it going on my iPhone, I was curious to see how it worked on my iPad since technically the iPad isn't a phone? The app took me through the exact same setup procedure where it asked me for my mobile phone number and email address. It texted me another code (this time I got it) and I entered it and it worked. I then tried placing a call from my iPad to my iPhone and oddly enough it worked through the Vonage App. I also tried sending a Vonage Text from the iPad to the iPhone and that works too. It also uses the caller ID of the mobile number you setup the App with. This means that when I placed a call from the iPad to my iPhone, the iPhone showed it as coming from my iPhone "number". A bit confusing, but just keep in mind that you'll need a mobile phone (doesn't have to be an iPhone) to set up the App on your iPad or iPod touch and that any calls you make from your iDevices will appear to the person on the other end as if they are coming from your mobile phone. 

 

What about calls to non-Vonage customers or Apps?

You can call any number you want. However, if you call a non-Vonage number or non-Vonage App user then you'll be prompted to use your Vonage "credits". How do you get Vonage Credits? Vonage did it right by making these an in-app purchase! Unlike Skype where you have to buy credits via their website. Currently they sell either a $4.99 credit or $9.99 credit. You can check the number you wish to call ahead of time in the App to see what the billing rate will be. For example, for me to call a buddy in South Africa it would be 23¢ a minute. Vonage claims to be 70% cheaper than carriers (not hard to believe) and 30% cheaper than Skype for international calls (for those people you're calling that don't have the App). 

 

What could be better?

I'm stoked about this App and having yet one more way to make Free or Cheap calls worldwide. However, they missed the boat on one important feature. Currently there is no support for Bluetooth headsets. This should be an easy one to add since there is an API for it. Also there is no video call support at this time, nor is there a "native" iPad version. Sure this version works on iPad, but in the smaller iPhone screen size. Other than that this App rocks!

You can get Vonage Mobile for Free here from the iTunes or here from the Android Market and for a limited time make free calls even to people that don't have the App (Kudos to Vonage for this trial). 

Reviews / Social Networking
Tweetbot_for_iPad

Tweetbot for iPad Has It All!

 

There are LOTS of Twitter clients out there for iOS and I must admit that I switch up on a regular basis. It's not that I'm that picky, it's just that I usually can't find a single client that does everything I want the way I want it to. So I end up going back and forth between the official Twitter Client, the native iOS Twitter support and Echofon Pro on my iPad. Although I have Tweetbot on my iPhone, I never really saw enough of an advantage in it to make it my default Twitter client and therefore I rarely used it. Lately I've been using Twitter on my iPhone and Echofon Pro on my iPad. That changed yesterday when Tapbots released Tweetbot for iPad. They seemed to have nailed it! I went through it looking for all the features that I like:

  • Auto refresh
  • Retweet with comment
  • Bit.ly Pro support
  • Instapaper Support
  • Images in-line
  • Good "List" support
  • Translate Tweets
  • Easy Conversation Viewing
  • Multiple Twitter Account Support
  • Choose your favorite Video and Pic service
  • and most importantly a GREAT UI that makes it easy to access the features above without too many taps

It's that last bullet point that will probably keep me using Tweetbot on my iPad. Sure the other clients have the above features (with the exception of Twitter now only supporting their own URL shortening!), but it's the UI (user interface) that's going to ultimately decide my favorite Twitter client.  What I really like about Tweetbot is the gestures. For example a Triple tap gives you reply choices. Swipe to the left to see the conversation. A single tap reveals the most common options for a selected tweet. Tap and hold on an Avatar to see options for that Twitter user. Tap and hold on the tweet to Send the Tweet to Instapaper (or the service you choose), Copy it, email it and yes TRANSLATE IT!

They even got the startup experience right! The first time I launched the App it offered to bring in the Twitter accounts that I already had setup in iOS 5. Yeah! Also they show you some helpful tips to get you going on the App.

Granted I've only been using this App for a day, but I can't think of anything they missed. Well I do have to ding them on one thing. It would have been nice to see this as a Universal App instead of charging both iPhone and iPad users separately. Also even though these things aren't important to me, they may be to you: I don't see support for the newly designed Twitter interface that offers "Discover" and "Connect'. You can of course see your Mentions and New Followers, but not in the same window. I could care less about this, but it is something that the official Twitter client offers. Otherwise if you're looking for a new great Twitter client for iPad, this is it.

P.S. Hey Tapbots, will ConvertBot ever see some iPad love? Also I really wish you guys could do what you did for Twitter, for Google+ too!

Follow me on Twitter!

You can get Tweetbot for iPad for $2.99 here from the iTunes

One more thing… Yes the iPhone/iPod touch version got updated to 2.0 with many of the features that kept me away from using it in the past and the ones that make me love the iPad version. It may be a win-win for me here using the same UI on both platforms!

You can get Tweetbot for iPhone/iPod touch for $2.99 here from the iTunes

Reviews / Social Networking
blogsy

Blogsy lets me blog from my iPad

In addition to writing App reviews here, I blog on my Tech Blog and for my Mac User's Group Blog. Most of the time I blog from my MacBook Pro, but I'm finding that I can do more and more with just using my iPad. All of my blogs use the WordPress engine and while I've used the official WordPress App, I find it lacking in several areas for formatting my posts the way I like. I'm especially picky when it comes image placement. Until now my favorite iPad blogging App had been BlogPress and while BlogPress is a GREAT APP, I'm actually blown away by the capabilities of Blogsy. Blogsy offers a slew of editing and formatting features that make me feel as if I'm editing using the native WordPress interface. While this could just as easily be achieved in the Safari browser, where Blogsy becomes the clear winner is when it comes to inserting media such as images and videos. As you would expect you can import media from your iPad Camera Roll or Albums. All of the blogging apps do this. However, Blogsy takes it up several notches by letting you drag and drop images and videos from your online sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa, and even YouTube. Yes you can drag and drop YouTube videos into your posts! Sweet!

HTML Editing and more

While Blogsy offers a nice graphical user interface (UI) for editing your blog posts, if there there is ever anything you need to insert into the HTML directly you can access it with the tap of a button. If you need to look something up or grab a link for you post, there's no need to leave the App as it has a web browser built-in. Blogsy supports WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, TypePad, MovableType, Drupal and Joomla. It also includes TextExpander support. 

 

The Bottom Line

While Blogsy does offer very impressive editing and image handling features there is one thing keeping me from being able to use this App 100% of the time. I haven't been able to find a way to use the custom fields and other features of my WordPress template while in Blogsy. For example, I would have been able to write this post in Blogsy and bring in the images, but I would have still needed to complete the post in a browser in order to add things like the Featured image and to fill out the details panel at the bottom of this post. These are custom fields in my WordPress template that don't show up in Blogsy (or at least I haven't found them). Even with that being the case I could use Blogsy to do the bulk of the work while on the go and finish the few little details that Blogsy couldn't do either on my computer or in Safari on the iPad. 

You can get Blogsy for iPad for $4.99 here from the iTunes

Reviews / Social Networking
MagicJack

Make Free Calls from your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone

There are lots of Apps that let you make calls from your iDevices. For example, with the Skype App you can make Skype-to-Skype calls for FREE and even call regular numbers (landline and cell) by using low cost Skype credits. However, this is the first time I've seen an App that lets you call any number in the US or Canada for FREE! Zip, zilch, completely free. The folks over at MagicJack that make the low cost accessory that lets you make very inexpensive calls all year long for a low flat price of $19.95-$29.95/year (depending on how many months/years you buy at once). The accessory requires you to use it with your computer and optionally a regular telephone. However, with the MagicJack App all you need is your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone and you can make all the calls you want for FREE. You of course will need either a WiFi or 3G connection to make/receive calls, but this means that it's not restricted to iPhones. You can just as easily make/receive calls using your WiFi enabled iPad or iPod touch.

 

How does it work?

Once you have the App installed and you setup/log in to your "optional" Free account you're ready to either direct dial any US/Canada number or dial any of your contacts. The call quality is surprisingly good. Making calls is easy! However, receiving calls is a little more challenging. In order to receive calls you do need the Free account and they will assign you a Free MagicJack phone number. This is where it's a little more challenging as your MagicJack number is not a standard phone number it's a number that looks like this: *0123456789* including the "*" on both ends. This is the number that identifies you on the MagicJack system and you can call another MagicJack user using their special number. If you want someone to call you from any other phone then they will need to first dial an access number like this one: 1-305-848-8255. Once they dial the access number they'll be prompted to enter the MagicJack number that you want to reach. I tested this by calling the access number/my MagicJack number from my iPhone and my iPad rang. Cool!

While the App works fine on iPad, it's not a universal App and therefore you'll see it in the standard iPhone size. Not sure if that's really a big deal since in most cases you're just using a keypad. However, I do have to give a it a slight ding for not being a universal App. 

 

The Bottom Line

It's hard to go wrong with FREE! Not sure how long this will last, but it's definitely an App worth installing if you're on any kind of limited minute plan or you want to make calls from a non-iPhone iDevice. You could perhaps use MagicJack for your personal calls instead of your 'business iPhone line". Do us a favor though and use a headset to keep the call private ;-)

You can get the MagicJack App for Free here from the iTunes

Reviews / Social Networking
verbs-icon

Verbs: An Instant Messaging Client

Truth to be told, I haven’t been a very active IM user on my iPhone or iPad. This is partly because the apps have been rather ugly and that it drains battery life a lot and fast. Plus, it just hasn’t been that useful. A while ago I found Verbs, an application that is just gorgeous and since I’m a sucker for beautiful apps, I downloaded it.

The interface is as said really beautiful. It takes the iOS style and uses it all the way but with a different color scheme which looks slick, modern and clean all around. There is really not much more to say about the Verbs UI design. Well done designers.

Functionality-wise, it supports a few types of IM networks, specifically Google Talk, AIM, MobileMe (now iCloud) and Facebook. If you are an MSN user or wants it to support Skype chat, you are out of luck. However, using either of the above networks, you get a nice app. You can easily select contacts from your buddy list, see their status and chat with them. Switching between multiple windows can be done by going to a window overview mode, or by simply swiping back and forth between the screens.

If you get the $0.99 version there are a few things that you will not get. These are available through an in-app purchase and enables Push Notifications, persistent connections (keeping you logged in for 7 days) and also saves battery life by routing accounts through one internet connection. If you use IM a lot, you definitely want to consider getting the Pro version for an additional $4.99, which I still think is an excellent value. Even with just the $0.99 version, you get an app which functions well and is gorgeous.

iTunes

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