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Despite the ability to install almost any kind of application (yes, any!), something which makes the iPhone a powerful portable computer, it’s pretty clear that Apple’s most famous gadget is mainly a communication device, both for telephony and internet.

The main goal is to provide users with a good substitute to their laptop while on the go and I can say the iPhone does this job very well. In this perspective, there are some applications that are not mainstream yet but can offer iPhone owners some very useful services at their fingertips. Here are three (actually five) must-have applications which make your iPhone experience even better.

1) Calliflower

Iotum’s Calliflower is currently one of the most comprehensive and powerful services to manage conference calls straight from the Web. They started with a Facebook app which has now evolved and has been brought out of FB to become a stand alone communication platform for online collaboration.

One of the latest killer-features they added is the ability to manage everything from your iPhone with a clean and effective user interface.

The iPhone application will be free until Jan 1, 2009, then it will cost $9.99 (that it’s like free, to me). They also just launched a premium service which adds new collaboration tools to the standard free service. Check out Calliflower website for more details.

2) Palringo

I already reviewed this service over two months ago and it seems they are growing more and more and adding new cool features.

Palringo is a rich Text & Voice Instant Messaging service which lets you get in touch with your contacts over multiple IM services, share pictures, join chat groups and share voice messages with your friends.

In particular, one of the latest features they introduced is the ability to get the position of your friends in your buddy list, making it easier to create new opportunities to meet / interact.

3) Let’s VoIP!

While Palringo is a great IM (and more), it lacks the ability to make phone calls. Ok, you have a phone, you can make phone calls of course. The point is that there are a few popular VoIP applications which can be easily found at the App Store, all worth noting, and the choice it’s up to you, depending on what are you looking for.

Truphone

Truphone is one of the first mobile VoIP apps, ever, released in 2004. This, alone, should be enough to make you understand that the keyword here is: realiability.

Pros:

• very robust, the first one available for the iPhone since its launch by Apple
• usability (open the app and dial)

Cons:

• no VoIP over 3G, WiFi only (but it’s more an Apple problem… take a look here for a viable solution)

Nimbuzz

Nimbuzz for the iPhone has just been announced and it’s really promising. Unlike Truphone, it offers the ability to get all your IM contacts in a single interface, making it easy to get in touch with them without having to install another application to be used for instant messaging. Definitely one of the most complete and the number of social networks supported is impressive.

Pros:

• all major IM and social networks are available

Cons:

• no VoIP over 3G, WiFi only (but it’s more an Apple problem… take a look here for a viable solution)

Fring

Similar to Nimbuzz, the features made available by this service are very similar to those found in the previous one. The choice is up to you.

Pros:

• all major IM and social networks are available
• twitter integration and SIP calls

Cons:

• no VoIP over 3G, WiFi only (but it’s more an Apple problem… take a look here for a viable solution)

What do you like better? Leave your comments here and tell me what your favorite communication applications are.

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Technorati Tags: App Store, Apple, calliflower, facebook, fring, Instant messaging, iphone, luca filigheddu, nimbuzz, palringo, truphone, Wi-Fi

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

It looks like the new BlackBerry Storm is way behind the expectations and doesn’t offer the same experience the direct rival iPhone offers. Here is a video showing how the BlackBerry Bold is way faster than the Storm. Thanks Alec for pointing this out.

What will business users choose?

Technorati Tags: BlackBerry Bold, blackberry storm, iphone, luca filigheddu, rim

Image via CrunchBase

I read today about an interesting iPhone application which basically changes the natural behavior of the iPhone and lets VoIP applications use the 3G network instead of the default Wifi.

This application, Voipover3G, works with the alternative installer Cydia, specifically designed for jailbroken iPhones 3G.

After installing this app, VoIP apps which used to use the Wifi connection, like Fring and Truphone, will be forced to use the 3G data channel. Not having an iPhone 3G I couldn’t test it out, anyway I find it useful in certain contexts even if limited to jailbroken iphones only.

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Technorati Tags: 3G, Apple, Cydia, fring, Installer, iphone, jailbreak, luca filigheddu, truphone, VoIP

Image by Quang Minh (YILKA) via Flickr

Since the death of my faithful Nokia N95, I was wondering whether an iPhone 3G could be both a replacement and a good companion when it comes to use it for business.

When I say for business, I mean full access to email everywhere and a deep usage of voice calls. At the same time, the BlackBerry Bold is a smartphone I saw the first time in the US thanks to Jim Courtney who showed it to me during one of the famous wine dinners organized by pal Andy Abramson.

My experience with the iPhone is limited to the 2G version I gave to my wife a couple of months ago, bought in Cupertino. That model is not bad, battery duration is enough and overall experience is not bad. On the contrary, feedbacks I got from iPhone 3G users are not that great, aside from Dan York who seems much satisfied about that (his company, Voxeo, replaced Blackberries with iPhones).

The question is: what’s a better choice for business usage? Honestly, I never had a Blackberry myself but the feedbacks I’m getting everywhere is that those are solid and fully functional devices which make your business day really effective, regardless the location you are staying in. The new Bold seems to be a major upgrade of previous models and with a high definition display, 3G and Wifi included it offers you a wide range of possibilities when it comes to manage your business life on the go.

The new Storm, at a higher price, offers you an iPhone-like experience too, with a touch screen in place of the standard qwerty keyboard. Jim Courtney pointed out that a BlackBerry App Store will be available in March ‘09, making the gap between RIM smartphones and the iPhone even smaller.

What do you think? For business, BlackBerry Bold/Storm or iPhone3G? 

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Technorati Tags: App Store, BlackBerry App Store, BlackBerry Bold, iphone, luca filigheddu, Nokia N95, Smartphone, Storm

Image via CrunchBase

I just received a note from Fring informing me that the popular mobile IM/VoIP service has been selected by Mobikom’s brand A1 to be distributed to their customers in Austria.

Here is an excerpt from the official press release:

Under the agreement, mobilkom austria will give its customers access to a dedicated version of the fring mobile client, containing fring’s entire open-platform, feature-rich suite of internet based mobile communications & community services, allowing A1 over IP users to talk, chat and interact with each other & all of their online communities, and access fun mobile web applications, using the internet connection capability of their mobile device.

In Phase 1 of the project, the A1 over IP service will be integrated into fring’s SIP service, offering fring users the opportunity of using A1 over IP accounts and also the ability to configure their A1 over IP accounts to work within fring.

Phase 2 will see a fring application being built into mobilkom austria’s mobile offering and pre installed onto a large number of mobile devices. This will comprise fring’s entire feature set of voice over IP, instant messaging, real-time presence / availability indication, file transfer and access to fring’s new always-on mobile internet applications (fring Add-ons)

This is definitely a major news for the Israeli-based service, which is continuosly bringing innovation to the mobile market and making the mobile IM/VoIP experience much better than what you can get by other competitors.

Skype, Twitter, all major IM networks, SIP calling and much more are the key ingredients for this growing success. Moreover, they recently announced that Fring is finally available on the Apple iPhone’s App Store but if you don’t own an iPhone and you are a Symbian user, you can get the latest version of Fring released yesterday.

Congrats to all Fring’s team for these continuous important announcements, keep up the good work!

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Technorati Tags: App Store, deal, fring, Instant messaging & messengers, iphone, luca filigheddu, mobile voip

In the last couple of weeks I received a lot of friend’s requests on Facebook from people I’d never have thought could have joined Facebook. Schoolmates as well as old friends, many of them finally discovered Facebook and joined it. Moreover, the driver who led them to join was to stay in touch with people, new and old friends, colleagues, classmates, relatives.

This is a clear sign that something huge is happening and that there is no doubt Facebook is more and more going mainstream.  That said, I started looking at this phenomena from a different standpoint: is Facebook capable of behaving like an operating system? If you look, for example, at the new Facebook iPhone application, everything you need from an operating system is there: messaging, IM, applications, microblogging, presence, live feed, photos, videos…

In my opinion Facebook could potentially be used for 99% of your time as a central dashboard from which you perform any activity on your computer and your mobile phone, but there are five important features that are currently missing.

1) Address Book - I mean the ability to add people in your “Friend’s List” regardless of whether they are subscribed to Facebook or not.

2) Mail Client - Currently Facebook’s messaging service is rather poor and is not ready to become a fully functional mail client. What if Hotmail would be integrated into Facebook? After Live Search, another move to better integrate Facebook with Microsoft’s services.

3) Documents - If I were Facebook, I would buy a service for online documents management as Google did a couple of years ago with Writely which was the basis for Google Docs. This application, together with the powerful mail client mentioned above, would be a killer feature for me.

4) Web Browser - It would be great if I could open any web page from within Facebook itself, leveraging its powerful sharing capabilities. A wordpress/typepad/… blog editor? A Wordpress.com Facebook application is available already, but a similar app for personal wordpress installations is still missing.

5) Calendar/PIM - 30Boxes is already offering it and it seems users like it (about 24.000 monthly active users) even if it’s still a little percentage of the whole FB population.

What do you think? What should Facebook add to become a real operating system? Can we expect to see a new mobile phone “F1” sometime soon? I look forward to your comments.

Technorati Tags: facebook, Google, Google Docs, iphone, luca filigheddu, operating system, Web 2.0

Aside from my wedding anniversay (4th), yesterday was the Nokia “iPhone-killer” day. Nokia just announced in London the new and much awaited Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the first Nokia phone provided with a touchscreen display.

Been labeled as 5800, it means that it’s a mass market phone and the price has been defined accordingly, that is $390 (in Europe should be around euros 290), unlocked. For a complete set of features, take a look at the official Nokia 5800 website, full of animations, videos and complete specifications.

It’s pretty clear that everyone is looking at it as the iPhone’s rival, even if I expect that all the next high-end Nokia phones will be touchscreen and much more feature-rich. This means that this comparison is, to me, a bit like apples and pears and it doesn’t make much sense, but in any case it ’s something people are looking for.

Who is gonna be the winner? Here are my opinions, broken down in 10 categories.

1) Display

Nokia 1 - Apple 1

The new Nokia phone is provided with a 3.2″, 16:9 - 640×360 nHD display with up to 16M colors. An accelerometer is included, so that the screen automatically rotates depending on the orientation of the phone.

The iPhone’s screen is a little bit bigger (3.5″) but the resolution is less, being 480×320. Not having tried the 5800 yet, I cannot tell you more, but I would say I would prefer a better resolution over a not much bigger screen.

2) Size

Nokia 1 - Apple 0

The iPhone is bigger, on average (a little bit longer 115mm vs 111mm,  thinner 12.3mm vs 15.5mm and larger), that means the Nokia is about 25g lighter. Not a big deal, both of them are portable and designed to fit well in your hands. Having a smaller width, the Nokia should be easier to operate with one hand only.

3) Memory

Nokia 1 - Apple 0

While the iPhone comes in two versions, 8GB and 16GB internal memory, the Nokia is offered with 8GB only through a micro SD card. The latter is definitely a more flexible solution since it’s very easy and relatively cheap upgrading to 16GB, something iPhone’s owners cannot do.

4) Network

Nokia 0 - Apple 0

Both phones are provided with a complete range of available voice and data networks, both GSM and 3G, and both phones come in two different versions for 3G (850/1900MHz and 900/2100 Mhz).

5) Input methods

Nokia 1 - Apple 1

Your finger for the iphone, finger, stylus or plectrum for the Nokia. Even if I prefer my finger for both, many will definitely like having more available options. Here  it’s only a metter of personal tastes. Unlike the iPhone, Nokia provides you with a traditional stylus - handwriting, much common to Windows mobile and Palm users.

6) Battery life

Nokia 1 - Apple 0

Daily usage with each of these phones is a different thing, of course, but according to the technical specifications, the Nokia 5800 is overall better either for voice, data and standby (about 15 to 30% more). In addition, Nokia claims up to 35h of music time against 24h of the Apple iPhone.

7) Camera

Nokia 1 - Apple 0

The Nokia is provided with a 3.2Mpix camera with Carl Zeiss Optics and dual flash. On the contrary, the iPhone mounts a very basic 2Mpix camera, no flash, no carl zeiss, far behind the Nokia’s one despite it is certainly not the top as the one mounted in the N95.

Video Recording

Nokia 1 - Apple 0

No native iPhone video recording yet, even if the iPhone is capable of playing various video formats. Services lik Qik works on jailbroken iPhones while it is pre installed in any Nokia 5800 phone. In addition you can record videos with the standard Nokia application and make video calls, something not yet possible on the iphone.

9) UI

Nokia 1 - Apple 1

Hard fight here. The iPhone UI is definitely cool and any customer loves it. The Nokia’s one is promising, with the new contact and  multimedia bar (familiar to N-series owners) but not having tried it yet, I cannot say more. What I bet is that Nokia’s interface will be much better in terms of basic features still missing on the iPhone, like the much requested cut & paste or a much better bluetooth integration, with the ability to send all kind of multimedia files trough bluetooth. I would say it’s a draw at this moment.

10) Music

Nokia 1 - Apple 1

To me, another draw here. Nokia is pushing this phone as a music phone tightly integrated with their new online music store. In addition, any XpressMusic phone will come with one year subscription which lets you download unlimited songs (with DRM). The winner? iTunes is certainly a big one to fight but Nokia is the #1 in the mobile phone market, that means a preferred way to push their services to customers and, with that package, easier to make them prefer their store over iTunes.

Being a long time user of Nokia phones and having access to an iPhone (kinda, my wife’s owns it) I’m not surprised by this result. There is much more to say, like audio quality during phone calls (I bet Nokia will be far superior), GPS as well as the internet browsing experience, I bet much better on the iPhone.

Anyway, right now it looks like the Nokia 5800 is a potential winner, more likely to become a mass market phone rather than the iPhone, the latter being much more expensive and not available without a contract in certain markets like the US. In any case, it’s more a metter of how you are going to use it most.

What do you think? How much market share will Nokia get against the iPhone? Please leave your comments doen here.

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Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple iPhone, comparison, iphone, luca filigheddu, Nokia, Nokia 5800, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic