File this one under “friggin awesome”. In a surprise move today, the folks at fring have announced the availability of a native iPhone application that supports all of the basic fring functionality that we know and love. SIP / VoIP, check. Skype, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM support, check. Skype Out calling, check. Of course you’ll need a jailbroken iPhone to install the app, although fring politically correctly states that you’ll need an “opened” iPhone. If you haven’t freed your iPhone yet then this announcement should leave you all out of excuses.
This special pre-release version of fring, has been developed in conjunction with the Holon Institute of Technology academic research labs in response to iPhone users urging us to let them join the growing community of fringsters in over 180 countries worldwide. During the R&D period, we’ll be listening to feedback, so we can fine tune the final version and create a truly kicking user experience for iPhone users.
As we get ready to fire it up here at BGR, we hope very much that it runs in the background. It must, right? If that is the case it will be interesting to see what fring issues post-AppStore. Perhaps they’ll maintain two versions; a good one for jailbroken handsets and a crippled one for AppStore customers. Either way, fire up your Installer and get fringing!
