With Skype under Microsoft ownership, Rebtel now claims to be the largest independent mobile VoIP provider, with 17 million users in over 200 countries accessing its service over WiFi and 3G on iPhone, Android, and PCs. Rebtel has added two million users since February, and is seeing an average of 650K new users a month — many of whom have been attracted by its low-cost calling to landlines and mobile, along with the ability to switch between data and voice connections to avoid dropped calls and busy networks.

Previously, Rebtel users have been able to download its iPhone app and use it on their iPads, but today the company is launching its first iPad app, with new navigation, graphics, and phonebook integration all optimized for Apple’s tablet.

The app allows users to make calls to other Rebtellers for free over WiFi and 3G, or select a number in their address book and call outside lines for cheap — rates which CEO Andreas Bernstrom says can be up to 60 percent less expensive than Skype.

The app integrates with the iPad’s address book, enabling users to instantly see which contacts are available to call for free (are using Rebtel) and which they can call for cheap. The app also boasts low-cost international SMS at rates it claims are up to 60 percent lower than the average carrier, and allows users to let their friends reply to text messages for free by selecting “Collect Reply” and including a link to the message that lets them reply via mobile web page, while you pick up the tab. And because long calls over data networks can be unreliable, the company added its “KeepTalking” feature to let users talk over voice networks instead.

With Rebtel expecting to hit $85 million in revenues this year — with what the Rebtel CEO adds is an average revenue per user that’s three times higher than Skype — it believes its timing on the release of its new iPad app is looking good. The iPad reached 11.8 million in sales during the last quarter, with Apple selling 3 million of its new iPads in the first three days it was on the market, giving Apple a 68 percent share of the tablet market.

To this point, Bernstrom added:

We are squarely in the middle of the post-PC era, marked by an increasing amount of consumers who have leapfrogged the classic desktop PC in favor of multi-purpose mobile devices that allow for greater creativity and social interaction. We are excited to expand our development pipeline to respond to this growing global demand for tablets and iPads.

That being said, Rebtel plans to release an Android tablet app over the course of the next months, with a Windows Phone app due by the end of the summer. With Forrester research predicting that there will be 760 million tablets in use globally by 2016, the need for quality, tablet-optimized apps is becoming essential, and, offering cheap, flexible VoIP calling across tablet platforms will put Rebtel in a good position to continue its current growth.

For more, check out the free Rebtel iPad app here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I’m smack dab in the middle of my HTC Evo 4G LTE review (the full review will be up tomorrow), but as I judge, I felt the need to bring John Biggs into the mix for a little Fly or Die.

Now, John is notoriously hard on Android phones, namely because they’re all incredibly similar. The Evo 4G LTE is no different. I, on the other hand, think it brings some pretty strong design language to the table, which could be great for someone looking to stand out.

I’m impressed with how comfortable the 4.7-inch 720p display is on the phone — usually that’s much bigger than I like (perfect “that’s what she said” moment, since you can’t say it yourself). But despite the fact that I threw out 25GB of free Dropbox storage, Beats Audio, and HTC’s Sense overlay, John still could not be impressed.

And to be honest with you guys, neither could I. Evo is a huge name to Sprint customers, but the yellow carrier has beefed up its offerings to now include the Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4S. Those are major competitors, which should crowd the shelves that the Evo line once dominated.

Dies across the board.

Check out the rest of my HTC Evo 4G LTE review coverage here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Quite a bit hangs on the horizon in the world of gadgets. E3 is right around the corner, as is WWDC (Apple’s Developer conference), and while hardware gets cooler and cooler, the spec does not.

John, Matt and I discuss this and more in this week’s TC/Gadgets webcast.

As far as WWDC expectations go, the debate currently centers around docks and displays. Matt seems to think that a 4-inch display on a Droid X-sized iPhone is in the works, while I’m hoping against hope that a larger display can fit onto the same size iPhone. John, as usual, doesn’t really care. He’s more interested in the docks — rumors are circulating that suggest a microUSB port on the new iPhone rather than Apple’s standard 30-pin connector.

This would, of course, leave hundreds of speaker and charging docks out in the cold, with the exception that Apple releases John’s suggested $39.99 iDong.

We also discussed what we expect out of E3, which amounts to little more than nothing. No new Xbox, no new PlayStation. Basically, we’re getting our hands on the Wii U, which is exciting, but there’s only so much that can be upgraded in current hardware.

Which leads right into our next point: how important are specs?

Matt wrote a post recently harshing on the Nexus tablet for a lack of wireless connectivity, but more importantly, detailing the insignificance of performance testing and specs. To his first point, John and I both own WiFi-only iPads and are perfectly content, whereas Matt needs data to survive.

As far as specs are concerned, we seem to agree on the idea that specs are important in a few select areas, like camera and display. But without a solid understanding of what they mean, and how they can be unrepresentative, they’re just as worthless as a processor clock speed. For example, Nokia’s 808 Pureview 41-megapixel camera doesn’t take 41-megapixel pictures. It rather captures around 40 megapixels of raw data which is then compressed into an incredibly sharp 8-meagpixel image.

In the same vein, display resolution is only a worth looking at alongside display size. The idea is to have a high resolution on a smaller screen. The bigger the display, the less pixel dense the resolution is.

We spent a good deal of this webcast arguing, so feel free to join the fight in the comments.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch