new iPhone app released

Wow - we have just had approved the latest BTC iPhone Connect App - now up to version 2.4

V2.4 adds some great new features

- support for inbound numbers ( you can now get an inbound number in over 40 countries worldwide and implement advanced call rules to send the calls to your phone or voicemail)
- voicemail - you can now see your BigTinCan voicemail right on your iPhone
- improved content upload process to MyFiles - big changes ! great performance increases

And lots more!

Give it a try - just download it at the Apple App Store - search for BigTinCan

Temporary Outage

*** update - all call services to all countries should be working great new and we apologise for the outage - we did send out a note about the problem to your email account if you did experience a problem today - we just want to say thanks for your patience with us ***

We are currently experiencing a temporary outage that will affect customers on our Connect Service in Australia and some parts of the USA.

We apologise for this outage - our engineers are currently working on re-routing the traffic and will have that rectified shortly - I will post back here when things are working again.

We are also (unfortunately at the same time) doing some work on maps.bigtincan.com and tidymystreet.com - we expect these sites to resume normal operation shortly.

I hate doing it .... but another post about how good Apple is at approving apps

When ever I talk to people in the telco industry and talk about BigTinCan and what we are doing with our iPhone app, people are always asking "but how do you get Apple to approve it? Apple hates competitive telco apps right?".....well my answer has to be a resounding NO - Apple seems to be very supportive of new innovative telco apps

We have just partnered with GlobalTel a major Florida based telco, who is a global leader in "call back" services. We have jointly created a new iPhone app that uses the GlobalTel backend to allow their customers to use the iPhone to make calls (read save money). Its simply called "GlobalTel" and is available on the AppStore now (AppStore Link)

Once we completed the development, we submitted to Apple - in fact it was just before Christmas. We had an email back from Apple requesting a small (very minor and not really relevant to this) issue - we made the change, resubmitted, and then the app was approved only a few days later.

What can we say, from our repeated experience, Apple is a friend to innovative developers who are interested in helping the smartphone community through telco apps.

And now into 2010 - we see even more opportunity to work with Apple on new ideas.

Get an Aussie Phone Number that you can really control

Well its supposed to be the Christmas holidays - and everybody is off work ? we'll we cant keep our team from implementing new things, and we are now pleased to annouce that we have released our incoming call control system and are launching it with Australian phone numbers at only $5.99 a month including unlimited voicemail and complete call control

You can now set "rules" for incoming phone calls in the same way that you can do for emails - you can decide who can call you at what time of day and from what phone number (callerID) - you can even create multiple voicemail profiles that play different messages, and best of all (i think) is we even have a "private callerID rule" that means that when you get called by a private callerID phone number - the system can ask the caller for a PIN - if the PIN is entered correctly the call is connected to your mobile (or office) phone - but if its entered incorrectly the call is sent to a voicemail system and that voicemail is emailed directly to you.

We think this is a really cool way of managing your calls, but its only one of the powerful things you can do with our incoming phone number service.

Check it out!

Signup for a free online account here

Who says Apple makes it hard to get telco apps approved!

Lots of bloggers talk about the challenges in getting their telco style apps approved - it was big news Q3 2009.

As a provider of a telco app for the iPhone, shipping since mid 2009, we have been through the process of getting our app firstly accepted and then delivering a number of updates.

The big news is that it looks like Apple is getting serious about their commitment to helping developers get their apps to market quickly - and is even extending this to the Telco apps market.

We had an amazing experience with Apple this past week.

We have been hard at work on our new WebCan V2.0 system and had released the web version only early December 2009. To make our iPhone app compatible with the new backend we needed to release a new version - and we really were fearful that it would take a lot of work to get it approved.

Well to our surprise the approval process for our update - which contains a lot of fantastic new features - took all of 5 working days! We were ecstatic to be able to get the update out to our users before Christmas.

And we learn that on the same day Apple has also approved the Ribbit App - that provides some of the same features as BigTinCan Connect (just at $30 a month!) anyway it really shows that the telco market on the iPhone is starting to get serious.

We think that this is all a preview to the VoIP over 3G market that will be significant in 2H2010. We are very much looking forward to releasing our solution for that market.

Its going to be a great year in 2010 for a whole range of smartphone apps that offer telco cost savings and most importantly productivity gains.

GetMusic and MyWorldTour Launched on AppWorld Australia

We are pleased to announce that GetMusic and MyWorldTour are now available on the BlackBerry AppWorld. These are two very exciting BlackBerry applications that we build for Universal Music and RIM. They are a different way of looking at music and music related events on a smartphone platform

Give them a try (or you do need to be in Australia to get them as they are designed for use in Australia only at this stage) and you can see that they are not just your normal "buy a song and download it" app - they are about the whole music environment and how you can find out about the latest tours, new music, charts and then the music genre that you like!

WebSite update

Well it seems like only yesterday that we were updating our website. And guess what we felt that we still needed to make our site even better and to show what we do in an even simpler way.

With the launch of WebCan v2.0 (and we would love to try it free - click here to try) we have made great steps forward in the development of the calling and messaging services. The new site is designed to make that even more prominent and easy to understand.

And its going to get even better over the coming weeks - we are adding a whole section on how to use WebCan and more information on a new version of BuzzMe.

So stay tuned.