Review: Viber 2.01 : Free calls and messaging

Viber 2.01 has recently been released and it brings about a few enhancements. I have previously written about my views of Viber 1.x, mostly about how it compares to its competitions and why you would want it. You can read my previous post here:
Review: Viber for iPhone, free calls anywhere...
Well, the Viber team has upped the ante and bring some new features to Viber 2.01 that makes this app even more functional than it already is. Here is an excerpt from Viber's update log:

"What’s New?
1. Viber now has free text messaging!
Send and receive free text messages to and from all your Viber contacts. We’ve added a new tab called Messages. To send a text, simply select a contact from your list, and start texting for free.
New “Free Text Message” button added to Viber contact details.
Tap this button to send this user a free message.
Viber will also notify you about incoming messages so you won’t miss a word single text.

2. Favorites tab location changed
To view your ‘Favorites’ - go to the contacts tab, and tap the Favorites button at the top.

3. Improved calling mechanism
Now, you’ll always know the status of your outgoing calls.
Once a call is placed, a “Calling” state will indicate that Viber is now connecting to the other party.
Once a connection is established, a “Ringing” state will indicate that the other party’s Viber, is now actually ringing (note that a call can still be established even if you don't see the "Ringing" state).

4. Placing regular calls through Viber
A “Don’t show again” option was added for to the “Place a regular carrier call” inform dialog.

5. Giving You More Control
A new option provides the ability to deactivate your Viber account, so that you can easily reactivate Viber with a new phone number.
Find this option under the ‘More’ menu.


Important! Don’t kill Viber!

To make sure you always get incoming call/message notifications and that an incoming Viber call is rejected as "busy" when you're on a regular call, we strongly recommend that you to keep Viber running in the background.
This does not drain your battery or use up memory and improves your Viber experience.

Advertise here

Bugs be-gone!
1. Who has Viber?
Missed out on some Viber contacts? We’ve now improved the Viber recognition engine. So check out your Viber contact list, and see who else have has Viber.

2. Improved Badges
Viber badges are now more reliable and will notify you about the number of your missed calls & unread messages.

3. Connectivity
Since the release of Viber, we’ve continued making several improvements to our calling mechanism. On In Viber 2.0, we fixed the “stuck on answering” bug, and improved the time it takes calls to connect.

4. And other small fixes…"


Number 1 on the list seems to be the biggest function added to this app and it is indeed a useful one. Although one would wonder how Viber is able to pry the users of Whatsapp, Pingchat, etc... to migrate to Viber permanently. Whatsapp and Pingchat especially has one of the biggest user base due largely to its availability on BlackBerry, Android and Symbian OSes. If Viber is to be successful, it needs to port quickly onto these other platforms so snatch users. Of course you can argue that Viber is more of a VOip app rather than a messaging app, but if they want to be numero uno, thats what they gotta do.
 
I know the text messaging function is new and we ought to give their developers more time to improve on its functionality. So if they can, they will need to add all the other features of a text messaging to Viber. Some other features I can think off are like:

1. Sending photos/videos
2. Sending location
3. Sending audio/voice notes (Whatsapp and Pingchat does that too, albeit a bit clumsily)
4. Sending contacts
5. Emoticons ;-)
6. Message sent and received indicator

The above are the basic features a text messaging app has and if Viber can incorporate all these changes, we have a potential game winner! It already has very good free voip. And if my senses are correct, it seems call quality has improved dramatically (over WiFi). I can think of a few ways voip calls can be improve and one of it is to have group calls. If Skype can do it, I'm sure Viber can do it. Of course it is only limited by its servers' capabilities.

Having said that, with the new features included, it would only put more stress on its servers and hopefully they have already thought about that and have servers scaled to support the additional requests. And I don't understand why we have to keep it in the background when all other text messaging services can receive messages when its shut...

Other new features in the new 2.01 are mostly minor additions and cosmetic changes . If Viber is to quickly gain on its market share, it is important that they speed up the release on Android and hopefully BlackBerry devices (and Windows Mobile too? Just wishful thinking... ). Viber app is a winner in my books due mainly to its free unlimited voip calls. And being FREE certainly helps (no ads too!).