Today is a big day in the history of Rebtel.

It’s a day that we’ve been anticipating and waiting for during past 9-10 months, and it’s with great joy and slight sigh of relief that we’re sharing it with you today. With the release of our new iPhone app, succinctly called Rebtel 2.0, we’re adding the ability for you to call your Rebtel friends for free over WiFi, 3G or by using our local numbers network currently available in 53 countries. Naturally, you’re not limited to only calling your Rebtel friends. Regardless if you’re calling an old landline phone or a phone booth, you can use Rebtel 2.0 to do so for savings of up to 95% less compared to what your operator would charge.

The app also introduces a groundbreaking feature that we think will save you a lot of pain. With most calling apps out there, the quality can be a bit unreliable and go up and down without you being able to do anything about it, with disconnected calls and a frustration as a result. Enter KeepTalking™. This nifty feature lets you jump from a call you started on WiFi or 3G to a regular call using our unique local Rebtel numbers.

If you like to text a lot, we have you covered as well. Rebtel 2.0 boasts super cheap international text messaging to 200 countries. Texts are sent from the app and delivered as SMS to any mobile phone number, with average cost savings of up to 60%.

Rebtel 2.0 is available for download on the App Store right now and you can get it here. We hope you will love it as much as we do.

Out with the old, in with the new. Rebtel 2.0 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.

We’ve realized that when you download an app, you just want to get to what’s important straight away, which calling. Simply enter your number, select a PIN and you’re can be on a call within seconds.

No more painful contact syncing leaving you with annoying duplicate entries. The new app displays your regular iPhone address book and gives a clean, simple overview of what friends that are available to call for free and what friends have an international number that you can call for up to 95% less.

Don’t bother going to the Rebtel website to look for rates when calling abroad. Simply enter the number and the rate will be automatically displayed in the bottom right corner.

Rebtel 2.0 boasts cheap international text messaging to 200 countries. Texts are sent from the app and delivered as SMS to any mobile phone number, with average cost savings of up to 60%.

Manage all your Rebtel account related details straight from the app. Add credit, share with friends and configure your settings.

The quality indicator integrated in the app let’s you know the health of your data connection when calling over WiFi or 3G. Tap the Info-button during your call for details.

Do you hate dropped calls as much as we do? Then you’ll love our groundbreaking new feature KeepTalking™. If you started your call on your home WiFi network and run out to catch the bus, the app lets you know that you’re losing your data connection. When it does, simply tap on the KeepTalking™ button on the call screen and the call will reconnect using our unique local Rebtel numbers.

Our iPhone app has now reached version 1.3, and in this update we’re introducing two new primary features and improvements. The first one is native address book integration in the dial pad and the second one is called Collect SMS replies. Let’s have a look at how this new stuff actually works.

Dial Pad Address Book Integration

New and Improved Dial Pad

Even though it’s probably not as exciting as the Collect SMS reply feature, an improved dial pad is something many of you have been asking for. With the enhancements added in this version, we’re sure your past frustrations with it will be no more.

Prior to this update, it was quite a hassle to make a one-off Rebtel call with the app to a number in your address book without actually adding it as a contact. Now you can simply tap on the ‘+’ icon to access your address book and pick any number you wish without adding it as a contact.

Also prior to this update, if you were to find a number to a hotel online and wanted to give it a call using the Rebtel app, you would be made painfully aware that it didn’t support copy and paste to the dial pad. This has now been amended and you can finally copy and paste numbers into to the dial pad from websites, SMS messages, emails and more.

Collect SMS Replies

Compose an SMS to your friend

After launching the app and tapping on the SMS tab, tap on the ‘+’ icon in the right corner to select the recipient of your message. You can pick any international number you like, but please note that there are a few countries, USA to name one, which we aren’t able to deliver SMS to right now. This limitation is something we’re working hard on changing, so please bear with us.

Add a Collect reply link

Collect SMS replies is a feature you’ve been able to use on our site for some time and it has finally has made it to the iPhone. This nifty little feature allows you to include a short URL in your SMS message, which your friend can click and open in a mobile browser in order to send a reply back to you. Just as the word “Collect” entails, the reply is completely free of cost for your friend as you, being the good friend that you are, will pick up the tab for it.

Naturally, if you don’t want to treat your friend on a reply, you can simply select the ‘Send Without Link’ option.

Your friend replies while you pick up the tab

This is the view your friend will see at the receiving end after reading your SMS message and clicking on the reply link. On this mobile web page, your friend is able to compose a reply message and send it directly to your phone. As you included a Collect reply link in your original message, the cost for the reply sent by your friend will be taken cared of by you.

If you’re already an existing user of Rebtel on the iPhone, simply go to the App Store to get the update and get started with trying out all the new features. If you don’t have the app on your iPhone, click here to download it. We look forward to reading all your (hopefully) nice feedback in our iPhone thread over at Get Satisfaction!

We have a lot of new cool stuff for you that we’ve been working on for the past year or so and things are finally starting to come together. We’ll have more on that in another post.

Anyways. Today, we’d like to talk a little bit about the recent developments on the front of VoIP applications being (or rather not being) on Apple’s AppStore. In particular one that has been developed by Google and seen immense media attention lately.

If you have an ounce of interest in what’s going on in this little world of ours (the technology and VoIP world that is), you have probably read that Apple made the decision to refuse Google’s latest iPhone application, Google Voice, entry to the AppStore. Now, you might ask yourself why we would dedicate an entire blog post to a company that seemingly starts to emerge as a direct competitor to us? The answer is simple. Sure, Google is a direct competitor with the roll-out of their Voice service. Although, the fact remains that we love Google as a company, their products and everything that they’re trying to do in the VoIP industry. Competition is good and always will be. It forces all companies to think outside of the box and try their utmost to provide their respective markets with a better product.

For a lot of people, Apple’s decision was nothing short of anticipated. Being the eternal optimists that we are, we figured that Apple might reevaluate their position considering their history of disruptive services. We all remember the inception of the iTunes Music Store, right? That was a product that revolutionized an entire industry that was, at that particular time, on life support. Apple were smart enough to recognize that opportunity and give it CPR. After that, we saw the music business basically resurrect and iTunes ultimately became the blueprint for digital music commerce.

Come 2009 and things aren’t quite as chipper as they once were. Apple’s disappointing decisions to go to bed with “the devil” has proven to hinder huge innovation developments in the VoIP industry that literally is standing outside their door knocking and begging to come in.

Now you might think referring to AT&T as “the devil” is a tad bit too harsh. If that’s the case, we feel it’s imperative to take a trip down memory lane to see just how uneager these cartels really are to embrace companies such as ourselves and Google and the subsequent technology we’re trying to bring forward.

Some of you might remember our little run-in with Verizion. Verizon didn’t seem to think that obeying one of the most vital cornerstones of democracy and the american constitution, freedom of speech, was very important.

Then, of course, we had AT&T, which we also went a couple of bare knuckle rounds with.

Last but not least, we had O2, which didn’t think it was in their customers right to use a service like Rebtel’s due to what they claimed were “capacity issues”.

Come on, really?

Since when does calling a local number on a mobile phone in 2009 cause “capacity issues” for one of Europe’s largest wireless service providers?

As you can easily make out, these people don’t exactly have a soft spot for us and honestly, who can really blame them? They’re feeling the heat and have been for a long time. If anything, their actions against us as described above prove that. Truth to be told, it can’t possibly be a good feeling realizing that you live on borrowed time and that your days are truly numbered. That’s some epiphany for you right there.

So, how’s all of this going to unfold? By the looks of it hopefully for the better. As a matter of fact, the US Department of Justice has recently initiated an investigating regarding U.S. telecommunications companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, to clarify wether or not they’re engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

Furthermore, the FCC has also raised some eyebrows of concern regarding the Google Voice rejection and decided to investigate the situation further by sending personal letters to Apple, Google and AT&T. Once thing is for sure, we can’t wait to hear what AT&T writes in their response letter.

Apple themselves have actually also done something rather peculiar that deviates from their regular practice when dealing with the developer community that, little surprising, went completely ballistic after the rejection and talked about going as far as boycotting Apple. Phil Shiller, Senior Vice President of World Wide Product Marketing, personally contacted two different developers that were outraged by the companies recent behavior. This was naturally a nice gesture, but it’s hardly enough to rectify and make up for the de facto damaged already caused.

Ladies and gentleman, the plot thickens.

A new day and a new post from San Francisco. This time the topic will be on one of the presentations from the actual conference that I found generally interesting, but particularly from a Rebtel perspective.

The session was entitled Mobile Ajax and the Future Web and was held by Daniel Appelquist. Daniel is senior technology strategist with the Vodafone Group based in London, UK, where he primarily works on Web and Internet projects and industry activities.

The first part of the talk (which I found most interesting) was a lot about the two different (and today separate) entities we refer to as “The Web” and “The Mobile Web” and how a convergence between the two is taking place.
In a (not too distant) future there will only be one Web when referring to mobile devices as well as regular laptops and desktops. Thematical Consistency, ensuring that content across all devices is provided coherently and consistently, will be ubiquitous and the standard to aim for. Thanks to devices like the iPhone (which naturally was mentioned as a groundbreaking device in this field), the task of obtaining Thematical Consistency becomes significantly easier.

Daniel also mentioned that today, mobile devices are slowly overtaking desktops and laptop based web usage (so cool). Mobile browsing is in other words seriously on the rise and with that device from Apple that came out last year securing a fourth place overall on the Internet browsing market share list with its 0.15%, we can get a hint of what’s to come. In as little as five years, the majority of the total worldwide web usage is predicted to be mobile (!).

A cool little detail during the talk, which felt very reassuring for us coming from someone like Daniel, was that he mentioned Rebtel (see the picture above) as one of the companies that truly are in the forefront in mobile technology and web. Thank you Daniel, you are a rock star!