Tag Archives: palringo

3G SIP via Fring on the iPhone would be great, but I agree with Ken

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OK, like Ken Camp, I’ve tried Fring and had my share of stability issues with it, but I’ll tell you what. It’s so frustrating to see so many promising apps (Palringo, et al) appear and stagnate on mobile platforms, especially the iPhone, because their best features are either WiFi-only or otherwise hobbled by Apple or the carriers. Case in point is SIP on non-jailbroken iPhones. Not from Fring, not from nobody.  Sucks times ten.

Get over it Apple & AT&T.  Consumer choices is how you win (and keep) customers.

Palringo adds location notifications

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Geo-centric functionality is more and more a necessity when building social devices, applications, and mashups. The relevance of location to almost every communications transaction is undeniable, and Palringo has embraced this truth by adding location identifiers to Palringo status messages, meaning that your buddy list will now display where in the world you are at the moment.  Good stuff, even if it doesn’t warrant a full-length PR:

LONDON–Oct. 21, 2008—Palringo, one of the most popular instant messaging applications for mobile phones, has added live location information to the latest version of its application—Palringo Local.

Accurate to the suburb or even street level in a city, and to the closest named town in rural areas, Palringo users can opt to display their location alongside their status, for fun, personal, social, business or any other purpose.

Palringo Local goes live today for Microsoft® Windows Mobile® users, and will be delivered as an automatic update for existing users. Roll-out will follow for other popular mobile device operating systems—including Symbian OS™-based phones, Java™, BlackBerry® and iPhone™—completing before the end of 2008. Palringo Local for desktop/laptop editions of the Microsoft Windows® operating system also goes live from today and will be automatically updated.

Palringo enables vocal instant messaging and picture messaging, as well as text-based instant messaging. Knowing the location of contacts adds further richness to the experience and brings benefits in all sorts of scenarios. For example, it may help simply when meeting a friend, or in more sophisticated ways such as assessing whether a conversation will be cheaper to conduct via Palringo than by phone, if to call someone will clearly cause them to incur roaming charges. Palringo is extremely cost-effective to use.

Kerry Ritz, Palringo’s CEO, said: “Since the dawn of the mobile phone era, we’ve all listened into or been part of mobile phone conversations in which the two parties have asked each other where they are—or, with SMS, spent a message establishing those facts. Now, people won’t need to do that; provided someone wishes to ‘show,’ the basic instinct to ‘know,’ even if it doesn’t matter, is satisfied.

“But there are also quite practical reasons for showing your location: if you’re part of a group all meeting in one place, like a sports team; or you want to know where your delivery drivers are without investing in expensive systems. Whatever your reason to show your location, now you can,” he explained.

Anyone using Palringo Local must specifically opt in to display their location; users can opt in and out at will. Even opted in, users retain control over which contacts can see their location. Location may also be set manually.

The popular instant messaging services with which Palringo integrates are: AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® and Windows Live.  People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat®, Apple’s IM application.

Palringo is free to download from www.palringo.com. There are no subscriptions or other hidden charges.

Palringo fills important gaps on iPhone

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There’s one feature Apple doesn’t advertise, one that comes with every iPhone: a Palringo-shaped hole.

Palringo is a messaging/voice communication solution that runs on desktop PCs and cellphones, but it really shines on the iPhone in particular.  This is because it offers multimedia messaging, a feature consipicuously missing from the iPhone since day one. Check out the latest:

PALRINGO BRINGS FIRST ‘RICH MESSAGING SERVICE’ TO THE IPHONE

LONDON–July 29, 2008—iPhone™ owners can now download Palringo’s rich messaging service (RMS) application from Apple®’s new App Store. Palringo enables picture messaging, text-based messaging and, soon, vocal instant messaging over the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo integrates with several existing popular instant-messaging (IM) services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger. People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple’s IM client.

Palringo offers two unique advantages to iPhone owners:
·       People can stay connected to the most popular messaging services at the same time, without the need to switch between applications or use Web-based messaging services.
·       In the current absence of multi-media messaging service (MMS) capabilities on the 3G iPhone, Palringo offers the ability to send and receive picture messages using the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo launches and connects within seconds, with a single screen tap. Palringo then presents a person’s IM contacts in a single, combined, presence-aware list, whichever IM service their contacts are using. Sending a voice, picture or text-based message, whether to an individual or a group, are also single screen-tap operations.

Vocal IM, which is already available on all other Palringo-supported platforms, will be added in the second release of Palringo for the iPhone.

Palringo CEO Kerry Ritz said: “Just as Apple has changed people’s view of what it should be like to use a mobile phone, so Palringo aims to change the way people see messaging. Billions of people already use instant messaging on their home or work computers to communicate with each other. Palringo has added vocal instant messaging and picture messaging and has put IM on the iPhone—that’s a great combination.”

Using Palringo will barely make a dent in an iPhone customer’s data usage:  Just one megabyte is sufficient for Palringo to send/receive the equivalent of about 4,500 SMS messages, send/receive about 32 picture messages or send/receive as much as 15 minutes of vocal instant messages.

The service is available worldwide, which means conversations can incorporate people from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC or Mac. This makes it very attractive for multi-national corporate users or extended family use.

Palringo for the iPhone is free, and is easy to download and install from Apple’s new App Store. There are no hidden costs, catches or other charges.

As well as the iPhone—both the original and new models—Palringo works on almost all models of mobile phone released in the last two years; visit www.palringo.com.