Twitter apps for iPhone are a dime a dozen. There are tens of solid Twitter apps available, but if you, like me, spend a lot of your time on Twitter, “solid” is not going to cut it, you need your Twitter app to be fantastic. I have been using Echofon Pro for years, and I even wrote a post describing the perfect iPhone Twitter app naming a few features only Echofon supports.
The Facebook iPhone app is the most downloaded iPhone app on the App Store and it has been for some time. Truth be told, it deserves all its fame, it is a well designed, feature-rich, and easy to use app. Having said that, Facebook (the site) is always evolving and just last week, new sharing options were added to the site. Well, I wouldn’t say “new” since they were clearly inspired by a competitor starting with the letter G and ending with a +, but they were new to Facebook.
You know what is amazing about the tech world? Not the fact that there is so much innovation happening on a daily basis. What amazes me is how that innovation drives new technology and that new technology then gives birth to multiple new industries just to support it. Take the iPad (Um, tablet) space for example.
Yes yes, we have all heard the numbers and they are ridiculous. The only thing 450,000 iOS apps give me as a consumer is a whole lot of confusion, especially in light of the fact that no company has really cracked the app discovery challenge. There are so many iOS apps out there, a new iPhone user literally does not know where to start.
Another day, another messaging service. Of course, the pioneer of this space was RIM with their BBM service, and to be honest, despite having traded in my BlackBerry for an iPhone 4, nothing compares to the ease of use and popularity of BBM. Having said that, everyone wants a piece of the messaging pie and if you are in the mobile game, you have to release your own messaging application.
Let me just start off by saying that I love Linkedin. Having said that, I do think the site is the best kept secret on the social Web. I don’t say that because Linkedin lacks users, I say it because I believe most people use it for professional networking, for which it is great, but they miss out on an entire side of what Linkedin can offer.
We reported yesterday that minutes after the Skype app for iPad was released, the company tweeted that they had pulled the app to “ensure the best Skype experience”. That was a little bit of a strange move by Skype, especially after having posted a video of the app a few months back, and then removing that too. Now, 24 hours later, the app is alive and kicking in the App Store. Putting aside all the drama that led up to this app, Skype for iPad was very much worth the wait.
I don’t even know what to make of this story. Skype, the company that leads the VoIP space and has recently announced it is going to be acquired by Microsoft for bilions of dollars still does not have an iPad app. It is one of the stranger stories and has everyone wondering what they are waiting for. Of course, Skype is not alone on this front, and even Facebook still does not have a native iPad app, but that is a different topic.
It feels like just yesterday we wrote about some big news in the mobile free calling landscape, and today brings yet another huge step forward. Tango, the cross-platform (iOS and Android) mobile app that enables free video calling over 3g and Wifi, has just announced two astounding developments.
Viber, one of the most solid VoIP clients for iPhone, has just announced the release of its Android app. Of course, there are many apps that allow iPhone and Android users to talk for free, but no one does it quite like Viber. Between the deep integration with your phone’s address book, the ability to get calls even when the app is not running, and the absolutely unprecedented voice quality, it is no wonder Viber has achieved such tremendous success in such a short time period.
