AudioMessaging

Latest

  • Orange Libon adds picture messaging to iOS app

    by 
    Mike Schramm
    Mike Schramm
    04.15.2013

    Libon is a messaging app backed by the European cell provider Orange that's making its way over to Android today, offering free calls, messaging and visual voicemail to smartphones on that side of the platform fence. But there's important news for us iOS users as well, as the app has also added free picture and audio messaging to our version, along with a push-to-talk feature. You can find the app for free on the App Store now. Orange makes money on this one using in-app purchases, which can add premium options like extra message storage, customization options or translations of your voicemails to text or to MP3 via email. These apps have gained a nice following with their free features. Libon, WhatsApp and others have created their own messaging ecosystems unrelated to what service you're using to power your phone. You'd think that with the iPhone so ubiquitous, Apple would have unified messaging as much as possible, and iMessage was their best try so far at doing just that. But these various services are still flourishing inside of the App Store itself.

  • Kyocera brings K325 "Cyclops" to Virgin Mobile

    by 
    Chris Ziegler
    Chris Ziegler
    11.01.2006

    Looking perhaps to move a little upmarket from the low-end Oystr, Virgin's new Kyocera-supplied "Cyclops" clamshell adds a couple key features that should appeal to the gearheads in the prepaid crowd. Besides generally looking a little fancier than its pearly sibling, the Cyclops puts its money where its mouth is by rocking a 1.3-megapixel shooter, a 160 x 128 display, and a speakerphone. The big draw here, though, appears to be the introduction of Virgin's new Virgin Mobile Audio Messaging (VAM) which allows subscribers -- rocking compatible handsets, of course -- to exchange brief voice messages the same way they'd send SMSes. As with Nuance's voice-to-text service, we're a bit skeptical that this is really gonna catch on, but who knows what kinds of services the kiddies are into these days?