First off, we’d like to start off by saying thank you. Since the last time we updated our iPhone app, we’ve received a lot of positive comments from you on the hugely improved voice quality over Wi-Fi and 3G. It’s going to get even better, and we’re happy you like it as much as we do.

This week, we released yet another update. Among general bug fixes and performance improvements, it features a missed call badge on the app icon and an easier way to invite more than one friend at a time via SMS or email, so you can have more friends to call for free.

Even though these updates are great, we’re very sorry to have to tell you that we’ve been forced to remove the option of depositing credit using our app. This is due to Apple’s regulations for in-app purchases, which state that we have to pay them 30% of every deposit made by you. As we work hard to keep our rates at a minimum, we don’t see increasing prices as a fair, realistic option.

However, there are other ways, and to tell you that we’re sorry for this happening, we want to give you a 100% bonus on your deposit if you’ve never made one before. You’ll get the bonus if you do it before April 10th, 2012.

How Do I Add Credit Now?

Log in to your account on rebtel.com and click “Add Credit”. If you want to make future payments easier, you can save a credit card to avoid entering your details in the future. Once you have a saved credit card, you can make payments on our website or by calling our access numbers, which you can read more about here.

Lastly, you also have the option to set your account to Auto Recharge. By doing that, your account will be automatically topped up whenever your balance drops below $1 so you won’t get disconnected during a call.

Again, we sincerely apologize and hope to come up with a solution within short.

Happy calling!

Call Laos for 2.9¢ to landlines and mobiles (down from 9.9¢)

Call Uganda for 9.9¢ to landlines and mobiles (down from 11.5¢ and 12.9¢ respectively)

Call Tanzania for 18.9¢ to landlines and mobiles (down from 24.9¢)

Lastly, the more people that use Rebtel, the lower the rates will go. If you want to chip in and make sure the next reduction is even greater, help us, yourself and your friends by telling them about Rebtel. If they sign up and go on to make a payment, we’ll even give you some Rebtel credit. To get started, click here.

Happy calling!

Salsa, mojitos and lovely charming people, the first country out the gates for our Happy Hour giveaway is none other than… Cuba!

As a lot of you know, due to government regulations, Cuba is one of the world’s most expensive calling destinations, so we figured why not start with a Happy Hour for the people that are usually forced to pay the highest rates.

How do you claim your 60 minutes of free calls?

If you’re an existing user, simply go to the Add Credit page and enter the voucher code Cuba60Minutes, click “Redeem now” and start calling friends and family in Cuba for free. It’s that simple.

If you’re new to Rebtel and don’t have an account yet, click here to create one in just a few seconds and click the “Got a voucher code?” link. Then, enter the code Cuba60Minutes and start calling.

The first 1000 people to redeem the code will get the minutes, so be sure to be quick. The code is redeemable starting right now, and will work until 6 pm GMT on Monday. Your minutes will also expire on Monday 6 pm GMT, so be sure to make the most out of them over the weekend and give your friends and family our best. Please note that these minutes only work for calls to Cuba.

Happy Calling!

So, what is it exactly?

Every once in a while, we’re planning on giving away… wait for it… 60 minutes of free calls to any given country, which will be randomly selected, for a limited amount of users.

To find out which country it will be and get all the details on how to get your share of the free calling, stay tuned on our Facebook, Twitter or your email inbox to make sure you don’t miss out.

We will be announcing more details later today, so stay tuned.

In October of last year, we released the very first version of Rebtel for desktop PCs, and today we’re proud to announce the latest and much improved, number 2.3. If you’re unfamiliar with our PC app, be sure to check out the video embedded in this post for a short demo.

The updates in 2.3 include the following improvements and fixes:

Better Call History
All calls are now presented in the recent call list, not just your last call per contact. Labels have been added to reflect if the call was free or cheap and when clicking a recent call, the new call will be placed using the same call type.

Easier To Earn Free Credit
It’s now a lot easier tell your friends about Rebtel to earn free credit by sending group invites using email or posting to your Facebook wall.

Filtering of Contacts
You can now filter your contacts by “Show all”, “All I can call” or “All I can call for free”.

Better Handling of Your Sound Devices
The app will now automatically detect new sound devices when you plug them in and the sound device settings have been split into two “Basic” and “Advanced” cateogories.

Hope you enjoy the latest improvements, and be sure to let us know what you think about it on Facebook or Twitter!

Download Rebtel 2.3 for PC

Call Ghana for 15.9¢ to landlines (down from 18.9¢) and mobiles for 16.9¢ (down from 18.9¢)

Call Korea for 3¢ to mobile (down from 6.9¢)

Call Japan for 2¢ to landlines (down from 3.9¢) and mobiles for 10.9¢ (down from 14.9¢)

Call Egypt for 8.9¢ to landlines and mobiles (down from 11.9¢)

Call Somalia for 38.9¢ to landlines and mobiles (down from 44.9¢)

Call Ecuador for 9.9¢ to landlines (down from 11¢) and mobiles for 16.9¢ (down from 20.5¢)

Call Iran for 7.9¢ to landlines (down from 8.9¢) and mobiles for 7.9¢ (down from 12.5¢)

Call Iraq for 3.5¢ to landlines (down from 4.9¢) and mobiles for 9.9¢ (down from 15.9¢)

Call Cambodia for 3.5¢ to landlines and mobiles (down from 5.9¢)

As always, the more people that jump on the Rebtel bandwagon and decide they want to call more for less, the lower the rates will go.

So in addition to helping us lower our rates and being an awesome friend for helping your loved ones find a better calling alternative, you also get free Rebtel calling credit. Just use our Earn Free Credit feature on our site to get started.

Happy Calling!

Ever since the advent of the Apple’s App Store and the maturity of HTML5, there’s been a discussion unfolding in the developer community about whether you should go HTML5 or native. Fact of the matter is, you don’t have to limit yourself to one. You can get the best of both worlds by marrying HTML5 with C, C++ and Objective-C.

Contrary to common belief, the most buzzed about apps, or updates rather, to come out during the course of the past year, such as the latest improvement to the Facebook and LinkedIn apps, are both in fact hybrids.

In the example of Facebook’s app, the main view, the news feed, is HTML5, while the frame and main navigation is native. The main advantage with this approach is from a cross-platform perspective, as you have the possibility to push quite significant updates without having to go through a tedious market place review process.

In other words, it’s not for nothing that we see category leaders like Facebook and LinkedIn go down the hybrid path. Both of them have their focus on social connections and content that’s built  up and shared by users and presented in a feed. With these types of content-centric apps, the hybrid  approach is arguable ideal. Effectively, it means less resources spent on the native and bridging  parts. Secondly, due to both Facebook’s and LinkedIn’s dominant market position, one can argue they can afford to make technology bets of this nature. Lastly, category leaders have in, my opinion,  an innate duty and responsibility to advocate and push the envelope for future web standards, something HTML5 most definitely is.

One thing on the feature spectrum of HTML5 that’s been given much attention is media support for video and audio, something a lot of developers have seen as a major lack. What exactly does native media support entail, and is it the silver bullet that we’ve all been waiting for?

Not quite. What’s been implemented is merely the introduction of “media player/recorder”-like support. For instance, playback of audio streams without the need for Flash and use of the native HTML5 platform video capturing capabilities that, for example, lets the user record and upload a video clip to a given site. These features are not the same as the type of support required for real-time media communications, such as the calling service that we here at Rebtel provide, which precludes us from going full-on HTML5.

Consequently, depending on the nature of the app you intend to make, you might not be in the position where you can afford to be held up by limitations due to slow convergence of HTML5 support for certain native functionality. You may very well need to have that “close to the metal” access to parts of the platform and device to be able to provide a superior product.

Then there’s the question of whether you could go for the hybrid approach for certain minor elements in your app, but not necessarily as HTML5-dominant as the aforementioned example of Facebook. In the case of Rebtel, where the core functionality of our apps revolve around calling, the type of native platform support we require is simply not a reality (yet) and we would likely still end up with a predominantly native app.

If you’re a developer finding yourself in this very conundrum, be sure do your home work before making that critical technology decision. Throughly scrutinize the benefits as well as limitations that HTML5 brings to the table, and take a good look at existing apps in your vertical to see how the UX can further be improved by the use of a hybrid model. Lastly, don’t neglect the power of app market place distribution if you’re an unestablished brand.

To see the fruits of Christopher’s labor here at Rebtel, download Rebtel 2.0 for iPhone from the App Store.

In October, we unveiled the fruits of about a year’s worth of development, namely Rebtel 2.0 for iPhone and PC. Both represent the second generation of the Rebtel service and introduced free calls over Wi-Fi, 3G to compliment our existing local numbers network and the groundbreaking KeepTalking feature that has put an end to dropped calls due to poor data connections.

Today, the family finally becomes complete, as we’re happy to announce that Android, the platform that covers roughly half of the world’s smartphone market, is getting the same Rebtel 2.0 treatment. It’s available to download for free on the Android Market. We hope you’ll like it.

Out with the old, in with the new. The Android app has been redesigned from the ground up with a new color way with the main theme consisting of a radiant rippled map of the world. The signup process has been made easier and smoother than ever before so you can get going with what’s important; talking more with your loved ones.

No more synching or managing multiple list of contacts. The app integrates with your Android’s regular address book and gives you clear overview of what Rebtel friends are available to call for free or for savings of up to 98%.

By the tap of a button, seamlessly jump from WiFi/3G to a local numbers call using Rebtel’s local numbers network available in 53 countries. This groundbreaking feature that was first introduced in Rebtel 2.0 for iPhone improves voice quality, reduces phone bills and puts an end to dropped calls.

Rebtel for Android builds on what’s already great. You can make free calls with Rebtel to friends living in of our 53 countries using our local numbers network, and starting today, you can call for free from wherever, whenever you want using Wi-Fi or 3G.

You don’t have to change the way you usually make calls to save money. Rebtel for Android runs in the background and picks up all international calls made from your phones regular dial pad or contact list and connects them with Rebtel. If you call a Rebtel friend, the call is free. If you call to any other phone in the world, we’ll make it up to 98% cheaper.

Happy Calling!

Call Bangladesh for 3.5¢ per minute, down from 3.9¢.

Call Ethiopia for a mere 15.9¢ per minute, down from 20.5¢.

Call Cuba for 79.9¢ per minute, down from the old 93.9¢.

We work hard to maintain our high quality and super low rates to all calling destinations in the world and as a Rebtel user, you can help us (and yourselves) along the way. The more people that jump on the Rebtel bandwagon and decide they want to call more for less, the lower the rates will go.

So in addition to helping us lower our rates and being an awesome friend for helping your loved ones find a better calling alternative to calling cards, you also get free Rebtel calling credit. Just use our Tell Friends feature on our site to get started!

Happy Calling!

The other week, our Customer Team received an interesting email from one of our users that discovered something interesting on our new site. That something was a cool Easter Egg that most of us here at Rebtel HQ (with the obvious exception for our crafty Web Team) didn’t have a clue even existed.

If you’re unfamiliar with what an Easter Egg is, it’s basically a message, video, graphical tweak, sound effect or something else along those lines that can be found in an app or on a website and is triggered by a set of key commands or mouse clicks.

Check out the video to see it in action and get instructions on how to trigger it yourself.

Do you know of any cool Easter Egg on any other site?