April 15 - 1:40pm EDT   fring on Tuesday today became the latest VoIP application to be made publicly available for Apple's iPhone. The fring beta software, which requires a "jailbroken" iPhone (the company uses "opened" as its euphemism), enables users to talk, chat and interact with other fring users and all of their online communities, using their iPhone’s WiFi connection. A light, sneak preview R&D version of the popular mobile VoIP application, developed in conjunction with the Holon Institute of Technology academic research labs in Israel, is now available for use on the iPhone. According to the company, the pre-release version is designed to gather feedback from users; the final version ... [full story]

March 14 - 5:35pm EDT   Hundreds if not more of the developers who applied to Apple's iPhone Developer Program have been rejected for membership. The $100 program promised developer support, entry to the iPhone AppStore and other benefits. Part of a published portion of the rejection letter reads: "We have received your enrollment request. At this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand the program during the course of the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time." As pointed out by TUAW, however, "this is less about 'rejection' than it is about developers being unable to ... [full story]

December 6 - 11:40am EST   Two new native applications for the iPhone promise to open up the abilities of the device. A member of ModMyiFone has devised an MMS application, which will finally let users send photos to other phones without e-mailing them. Users simply enter a title and the receiver's phone number, and then select an image from the list of files found. As the app is only at v0.1, there are some notable limitations; it cannot for instance receive MMS messages, nor can it send out video or accompanying text. Likewise, users must jailbreak their iPhones to install it, and manually enter their carrier's MMSC settings. [full story]