HeyTell is a really neat (and free) app for the iPhone. It’s a mix of the best things about text messages, and the Nextel walkie-talkie thing. Everyone you talk to will need the app (iPhone only at this time). You then need to add people out of your contacts list as “friends”. This action will send the person a text message or an email with a link they need to click to accept your friend request. You can then open the app, select a friend, and push the big orange button at the bottom to send a voice message to the selected contact. Push notifications make the whole thing work much like text messaging.
I’ve been using it for a week or so now. It’s pretty useful. Those times when a phone call is too disruptive, and you don’t want to/can’t type a text message is the perfect use case for this app. In fact, I can see it replacing text messages for several of my contacts. It’s found it’s way on to the first page of apps. The only real blemish with the app is how it handles your contacts. There is no way to tell if you can send a message to a particular contact. If you send a message to someone you haven’t friended, it sends them an invite to download the app along with a URL they can use to “friend” you. There needs to be some way to tell who your friends are (i.e. show me the list of people I can talk with). Overall, it’s been a useful tool already and is worth checking out.
