It was inevitable, the first iPhone developer to release an update to get two-way video calling over the iPhone 4 with it’s front-facing camera has arrived. Surprisingly, Fringland Ltd. is the developer to do it. Fring was updated on July 8th to support two-way video calling in their app. Calls can be made via WiFi or 3G! So you are not tied down to a WiFi hotspot to be able to make video calls and not tied to iPhone 4′s only! Yes, they allow you to call anyone that uses Fring. Android phones and iPhones!
MacRumors.com broke the story:
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)
I have heard bad things about Fring running on Android. Episode 177 of AppJudgement, a Revision3 show reviewed the software and even though they laughed at the face of FaceTime and it’s WiFi limitation, they didn’t love Fring.
That said, maybe the issues with Fring are related to the hardware they are running on and when on the iPhone, the video quality will be better.
If not, we can only assume that Skype is working frantically on getting it’s iPhone app updated to work with the front-facing camera. Having the ability to talk to anyone, mobile phone or computer via the iPhone 4 will truly make the front-facing camera of the iPhone 4 shine.
We already know that Skype will work way better on iOS 4 and it’s multi-tasking OS. Adding the ability to do voice calls will pretty much blow the competition away.
