If an all-in-one VoIP and IM client on your iPhone is what you’ve been yearning for since the multi-touch device first arrived on the scene, and particular since the popular App Store officially arrived, news from Fring this week is bound to please.

Yes, as of Friday, Fring has made available its first iPhone- and iPod touch-compatible application for the App Store [iTunes URL]. It joins two other consumer-focused applications, Truphone [iTunes] and PennyTel [iTunes], in the budding selection of VoIP applications, and like the others, it is free to download.

And as Fring’s alternative options have themselves proven to do, the free iPhone/iPod download gets you quite a lot in terms of choice. Far more than what its Apple-approved brethren have provided so far. It can connect you to Skype, MSN, ICQ, Google Talk, Twitter, Yahoo, and AOL’s AIM protocol, as well as conduct cellular, SIP, and Skype Out calls via Wi-Fi. (Cellular is of course only possible via an iPhone.)

So long as you don’t manage an IM or phone contact account with a service other than Fring’s or any of the abovementioned services, you’re free to explore all options. And most of them are quite good.

The interface is simple enough to figure out in a few minutes, even if you’re new to Fring itself. There is occasional lag when interacting with various parts of the design, so much so that you may have thought the application had frozen entirely. But I’ve not experienced a crash as of yet. Twiddle your thumbs for a few seconds if it’s being stubbornly insensitive. If crashing is consistent in your case, the most common remedy is a restart of the device.

What may strike some users as unnecessary or unwanted is the presence of one’s iPhone’s contact list shown within the Buddy menu. You might want it exclusively focused on Web services that you specify, and nothing else. But seeing as how you can place a call via a cellular network if need be, the option to quickly seek out a contact without having to exit the application is not such a bad thing to have. Furthermore, it’s not possible to mistakenly place a cellular call by tapping on a name within your phonebook, if that’s your worry. Doing so only brings you to a set of contact information. If you choose a stored phone number, you’re given the chance to place a SIP, Skype out, or run-of-the-mill cellular call, depending on how you configure your application settings. If you wish, you can also request to find any corresponding information within the Fring database. No matter what, the cellular option is open.

If you do in fact choose to place a cellular call, a dialer is superimposed on the screen, allowing you to confirm or cancel or alter the digits in any way. Hit “OK” and you’re taken away from Fring into the iPhone’s standard calling utility. End the call and you’re automatically drawn back into the Fring.

For a free application, Fring is certain to please many users. Lots of users. The way things like Twitter feeds are display isn’t the most elegant, I’ll admit. Plenty of other applications will do a far better job for certain tasks. But as a basic multipurpose communications utility for VoIP and IM services, it’s clearly the best one on the App Store menu today.

Fring originally debuted its iPhone application back in April to showcase what would be possible for iPhone users once the App Store arrived. And while it’s been months since the launch of the storefront, with only Truphone and PennyTel to serve users, the official Fring release is three megabytes of connectivity that I’m quite sure will prove a very popular download very soon.

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Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:

Fring Makes Twitter Free
Fring Now Supports ICQ for Integrated Mobile Chat
fring Enriches Mobile IM Client with fringAdd-ons
fring Releases Open API to Enable New Mobile VoIP Apps [Israel Media Tour]
Jajah Enables VoIP Calls on iPhone
The Slow Move to Mobile VoIP (Poll)
iPhone Rumored For Canada On December 7th

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