“Free calls over Skype, the Internet communications service, could be coming soon to the iPhone,” Jessica Mintz reports for The Associated Press.
“Skype, a subsidiary of eBay Inc., said Thursday at the International Consumer Electronics Show that a version of its Internet calling and instant-messaging software is available for Google Inc.’s Android cell phone platform as a free download. And it indicated an iPhone Skype program isn’t far behind,” Mintz reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Note how the focus of the article is about Skype coming to Apple’s iPhone even as it’s released for Android.
Mintz continues, “Scott Durschlag, Skype’s chief operating officer, said Skype’s iPhone application is still under development. Engineers are still working on cutting the amount of power the application consumes, he said… This week, Skype [also] launched a new version for Apple’s Macintosh computers.”
Full article here.
Doesn’t Fring offer something like this?
interesting, though,that it cam to android first. hmmmmm
Yes, I use Skype on m y iPhone using the Fring application. So whats the big deal about a native Skype application?
So where’s the new Mac version supposedly launched this week? I canot find it on Skype’s site.
I found it and downloaded skype 2.8 but I can’t find the link now.
Skype 2.8:
http://www.download.com/Skype/3000-2349_4-52313.html?tag=mncol
Skype’s website has not been updated to reflect the new version for Mac. It still has version 2.7 as the latest.
I think this would be fantastic.
What the heck has happened to iCall? That iPhone VOIP app has been pending Apple approval since October.
Give me one that can automatically switch from wi-fi to 2G/3G like iCall is supposed to be able to do, and be able to receive calls, and I’m ditching my landline.
I imagine receiving a call over wi-fi would be tough (while keeping your same iPhone number), so I’d settle for receiving the call over 2G/3G then doing something to kick it over to wi-fi.
If so this service is a winner!
Too late. Truphone is already the best VOIP app for the iPhone. I had and used Skype on my Mac and was awaiting the iPhone version but they dropped the ball. Truphone is awesome.
“interesting, though,that it cam to android first. hmmmmm”
It could be that Apple is not allowing it.
I think Skype 2.8 is still a beta.
Hey here’s the beta with the new features see it by yourself http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/macosx/beta/
Skype 2.8 is in beta.
The screen sharing feature is great, especially since I know a few people who are stuck using Tiger.
I’m still waiting for iChat on the iPhone…helloooo Apple? {…dial tone…}
Lil Droppa:
How do you imagine they would implement iChat on the iPhone with a camera facing backwards? On a related story, you HAVE seen the recent patent application story here: http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/19677/
It is a pretty safe bet that this patent is for the technology they’ll implement in the next iPhone, presumably coming this summer. Rather than sacrificing precious space on the front of the device, the front-facing camera will be embedded somewhere in the display and the pixels between the camera and the subject will just turn off while using the camera. Without a front-facing camera, there is no point in implementing iChat; Apple will never do a half-baked version of an existing solution, especially since iChat AV is so superior to Skype for video-conferencing. Audio/video quality is much more robust, scaling down to almost dial-up speeds without breaking down, dropping audio out, or stopping the video; and audio practically never breaks up, which is something that Skype still has to work on. Let’s also not forget four-way video conferencing, which is simply non-existent anywhere else.
As soon as a front-facing camera becomes reality on a 3G iPod, we’ll see a free iChat solution for it. And iChat AV video conferencing will probably quickly surpass Skype user numbers.