Hoiio Blog

Using Hoiio on your office and home phones

Dave — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:47:44 +0000

From 15 Feb 2012, we are going to enable IDD calls for landlines in Singapore (e.g., numbers starting with 6). To register your home or office line, simply send the following information to support@hoiio.com :

1. Name of User:

2. Singapore Landline number:

An account would be created for you within 3 working days and an email confirmation would be sent to you. Once the account is created, you can proceed to top up using our web portal at http://www.hoiio.com or you can transfer credits to the new account.

To make an overseas call, simply dial 65918870 in Singapore (calls made using landlines through this access number are charged using Call Through rates) or use our web portal. Refer to our web portal for our competitive rates.

To reward our loyal Hoiio users, we are giving out $1 in bonus credits for new registrations for Singapore landlines till 29 Feb 2012. Register today and try out our IDD services with superior voice quality!

Free Registration Credit. Now, It’s for Everyone.

Made — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:27:38 +0000

We have good news.

Last year, Hoiio gave free registration credit only to users from Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, USA, Canada and Australia. Now, we have extended the promotion and give free registration credit to users from all over the world (except for China). With the free credit, your first call via Hoiio Phone will be on us.

Hoiio Phone promises good call quality at a very low rate. Definitely, our internet call rate is lower than Skype Out, and our international SMS charges are lower than what mobile operators used to charge you. So, if you have any friends who call overseas and they have not used Hoiio yet, please help them to save some money by telling them to use Hoiio. Also, don’t forget to add: When they register to Hoiio, their first call is FREE. Click here to see our rates.

2012: Here we come!

Dave — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:18:33 +0000

New Year always gives new hope, new beginning, new aspirations, new challenges to overcome and more dreams to fulfil. At Hoiio, we are always grateful and inspired by all your suggestions, feedback and even criticisms which help and push us to meet the demands of our ever growing users. Our commitment to give our users a WOW experience has always been our top priority. We are highly motivated to give our users more exciting and useful features and innovations.

As year 2012 is fast approaching, let us give you a sneak peek of some of the things to look forward to with Hoiio.

Hoiio Live. The app that will make your phone book comes alive. Without a hassle, you will get the most updated contact details of your friends and business partners.
More Hoiio Numbers in other countries. Now we sell Singapore and HK numbers. We will add our inventories from other countries like Australia, etc.
Hoiio Business for everyone: easily create a Hoiio Business account and get your office mates to benefit from Hoiio.
More apps to increase your productivity in the office.

These are just 4 of Hoiio’s long list of things we are working on. More innovations and technologies await you as we share another year together and more fruitful years to come.

Cheers to 2012!

Hoiio Team

2011: Thank You!

Dave — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:18:17 +0000

As we celebrate this joyous season and as we prepare for the coming year, this is the best time to look back and be thankful for the fruitful year of partnership with you. With this, allow us to share some of the things we have done and accomplished throughout the year. All of these may have not been possible without your honest feedback, helpful suggestions and most of all, your unwavering support.

Launched new products: Hoiio Chat, Hoiio API, and Hoiio Genie.
Slashed Call/SMS rates, thus offering the cheapest rates in the market today.
Improved Internet call experience on Android.
Provided Top Up receipt, you can ask reimbursement from your company.
Extended communication channel with you via Facebook , Twitter, and suggestion box.
First born app from the Hoiio API program, named Textuate co-created by the good folks from SmartLoans.
Awarded as one of the Top 50 Applications in Asia. Thanks to you! :)

Again, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude for sharing all these milestones with us and we look forward to serving you for many years to come.

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Cheers!
Hoiio

Global SMS to 12 countries at 5 cents/SMS

Made — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:19:47 +0000

Sending SMS is getting cheaper. Use Hoiio when you send SMS to the 12 countries below, and you will only pay 5 cents/SMS or lower.

Singapore
Philippines (3 cents/SMS)
Australia
Canada
USA
HK
India
Indonesia
Japan
Malaysia
Thailand
Vietnam

If you don’t find your destination above, don’t worry. We’re going to add more countries in the list. Drop us a comment at support@hoiio.com.

Hoiio Phone v.2.2 for Android – New Internet Call for the New Year

Dave — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:22:24 +0000

A little over a year ago, Hoiio introduced Internet Call (Beta), a cheaper alternative to call friends and loved ones through the use of VOIP technology. Since then, we have logged more than 300,000 minutes of internet calls! This is absolutely encouraging to us and we’d like to extend our deepest gratitude to our customers for making this possible. This year, we’ve decided to put more icing to the cake and we are excited to share with you what we have been doing for the past few months to enhance your internet call experience.

1. New Year, New Look!

Charles Lamb once said that New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. We think that it is also true for Hoiio! In this new release, we’ve given the Internet Call module a facelift. We’ve also added a new feature in this screen where the quality of your call is measured real time.

2. New Year, New Upgrade

In using the new Internet Call, you will immediately notice the improvement from the old one. We have updated some modules to reduce the amount of outside noise during a conversation. You will also notice a significant improvement in the voice quality.

3. New Year, New Feature

We do not want to charge you for something you won’t enjoy. And so prior to starting an Internet Call, we do a quick check of your network connection to see if it is good enough to initiate an Internet call.

Hoiio Phone v2.2 for Android is now available in the Android Market. If you haven’t done so, now’s a good time to download the app!

Oh! And did we mention that we’ll be very happy to interact with you and know what you think? Come and join our Facebook page!

Cheers!
Hoiio Team

Local calls shouldn’t be expensive

Dave — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:48:15 +0000

Have you ever realized that you’re actually paying more than your monthly subscription plan from your telco?

Your plan may have some free outgoing call minutes, but once those are used up telco generally charges $0.16/min for your calls.

We’ve got some tips for you:

1. Downgrade to the lowest possible plan
2. Use Hoiio after your free minutes are consumed with your telco or whenever you want to.

How Hoiio callback works?

Hoiio Phone v2.1 for Android – Faster. Better. Calling Could Not Have Been Easier!

Dave — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:54:11 +0000

Here at Hoiio, we are committed in delivering powerful applications that revolutionize the way phones are used. In this new release, we have made many improvements to our Android app.

If you are interested to know what those improvements are, read on.
Otherwise,

or search for Hoiio Phone in the Android Market

1. Improved Internet Call

We have updated our Internet Call feature to be more robust, allowing a more engaging / care-free conversation. Simply connect your phone to WiFi or 3G and dial away. Singapore to Hong Kong calls is just SGD 0.029/minute. Singapore to Singapore calls is even cheaper at SGD 0.019/minute! For a Smarter Hello, Use Hoiio!

2. Improved In-app Phonebook Data Synchronization

In v2.0, we designed an in-app data synchronization. It has come to our attention that some of our users have been experiencing some problems with this feature… and so we made sure to address this issue.

In v2.1, data synchronization now happens instantly! If you are among those who ran into this problem, you will surely like this new update. We’ve made it such that even for a phone with thousands of contacts, not only won’t you feel the weight of loading… you don’t even have to wait for loading.

3. Increased SMS Limit from 160 to 450 Characters

Our team also have a lot of great things for you in our SMS module. For those who needs to send an SMS message with more than 160 characters, we upgraded our app to increase the capacity to 450 characters. Oh, did I mention that Singapore to Philippine SMS is just 1 peso/SMS (SGD 0.03)? That’s International SMS for the price of local.

4. Resend SMS

Further, we’ve added a Resend option for SMS. In cases where you need to resend an entire SMS such as greetings and reminders, you don’t need to key in everything once more. Just select which SMS you want to resend and you’re good to go.

5. SMSes Sent via Hoiio Now Appears on Native SMS App

In v2.1, all messages sent via Hoiio is now reflected in your native SMS app. This will help you keep track of all the SMS messages you sent.

6. Home Screen Shortcuts

Finally, we thought that Home Screen shortcuts are valuable to you. In v.2.0, in order to send SMS, you need to go inside the app. Now, you can do it faster by setting up this shortcut. Simply click Menu > Shortcuts > Hoiio – New SMS.

What are you waiting for?

Cheers!

Asia Top 50 Apps

Ong Kok Choong — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 07:45:05 +0000

Hoiio is nominated in Asia’s Top 50 Apps, organized by Singtel Innovation Exchange!

Cast your vote before 10th October, and help us be among the top 50 apps! Simply go to asiatop50apps.com, and like or +1 for Hoiio.

If you have both Facebook and Google+ accounts, do both and give us your two votes. Woohoo!

For your convenience, you can just click “like” below :)

Slashed: Philippines, India, Australia, and Hong Kong

Made — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:09:32 +0000

We said that we could only slash one country at a time, but this week, we slash four countries. All in one single stroke. Now, from Singapore, you can call/send SMS cheaper to Philippines, India, HK, and Australia. Below are some highlights on our amazing slash promotion. Check out the full rates by logging in to www.hoiio.com.

Philippines

Call to Philippines fixed line at SGD 18 cents/minute (slashed 28%), and mobile at SGD 22 cents/min (slashed 12%)
Piso Text. Send SMS from Singapore to Philippines at One Peso/SMS (SGD 3 cents/SMS).

India

Call any destination in India at SGD 4.8 cents/minute (slashed 40%).
Global SMS at local rates. Send SMS to India from Singapore only at SGD 5 cents/SMS.

Hong Kong

Call any destination in HK at SGD 4.5 cents/minute (slashed 42%).
Global SMS at local rates. Send SMS to HK from Singapore only at SGD 5 cents/SMS.

Australia

Call to Australia fixed line at SGD 6.8 cents/minute (slashed 19%), and mobile at SGD 18 cents/min (slashed 22%).

We hope that you like this, and share this to your friends. The more people using Hoiio, the more competitive we can be!