Free Skype Client Lands On the iPhone 150
CNet is reporting that a free Skype client will finally be landing on the iPhone this week. Unfortunately some are saying that it seems many of the "critical" pieces of functionality are still missing. While the Skype engineers claim their native client will offer better audio quality (because there is no need to route through another server and transcode audio) they are still missing text messaging, file transfers, and integrated voice mail. Since the iPhone does not allow for multiple programs running concurrently, many are expecting existing multi-function apps like Fring and NimBuzz to continue their reign at the top.
If so won't last long (Score:2)
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Its funny, I've had a full featured Skype client running on my Windows Mobile powered HTC Apache on the Sprint network for a few years now. And I can use the 3G connection for Skype calls. Why people keep going crazy about the iPhone is completely beyond comprehension.
Why, iPhone already has other VOIP apps (Score:2)
I think some of the Apple Hater froth around your mouth got into your eyes, as you seem to have missed the fact that the iPhone already has other VOIP clients - just not an official Skype client until now. AT&T doesn't care a whit, these all work over WiFi.
Re:If so won't last long (Score:5, Insightful)
It only works on WiFi, and Apple has explicitly stated that VOIP over WiFi is allowed - they wouldn't say that if AT&T were going to fight it. It's better for the telcos anyways - you're paying them your monthly rate regardless of whether you use their bandwidth, so the less you use, the more profit they take in.
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iPhone owners will love Nokia N95 users then. I could set my phone as a WiFI access point and iPhone users could make Skype calls through my data plan.
So annoying to see technology come so far and then the next logical step be crippled.
Being sat on the tube/metro with my iPhone/N95 and wifi + bittorrent would enable huge amounts of data exchange while I'm commuting to work.
Music concerts and festivals could allow the audience to bluetooth or wifi their music to the DJ, allowing him to queue it up, vote on t
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I have my iPhone on pre-paid (but no data). NZ$20 a year is all I have to pay to Vodaphone to keep my account in credit. If WiFi had the same coverage as GSM/etc. in my area, VOIP over WiFi would be great. Hopefully that happens, because Vodafone are charging way too much for 3G (and data in general), even if you pay full-price for the phone.
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Putting Skype in the iPhone is like duct-taping a pistol to a machine gun.
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Sure - but the pistol's bullets are free, and the machine gun's bullets are not.
Wait, this is seeming like a bad analogy...
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Re:If so won't last long (Score:4, Insightful)
captain obvious: it'll never be full featured (Score:5, Insightful)
And this Skype client will never be full-featured because it would take revenue away from the phone company, who profits by selling voice plans. You might be thinking a data-only plan with a Skype client would save you money, but you'd be wrong: Apple doesn't want you to do that. AT&T doesn't either. Or any other wireless provider. Sure, we could invest in a decent wireless data architecture, but why do that when we know we can keep bumping up prices and not improving infrastructure, and then blaming "high consumption users" for the problem. You will pay, like the good consumer you are. Oh yes, you will pay.
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The rich get rich and the poor get iPhones?
Re:captain obvious: it'll never be full featured (Score:5, Interesting)
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Now lets just get tmobile to actually have a real 3g network (their 3g network is some small it is actually hard to find service anywhere but in major cities) and I would switch in a heart beat.
I can get verizon 3g service and att 3g service but no tmobile. I'll stick with 3g service thank you.
Re:captain obvious: it'll never be full featured (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it doesn't.
What it's got is a little application that makes a standard telephone call to a Skype server, which gateways your call onto the Skype network. Which means you use up mobile call time as well as Skype calltime. No VOIP is involved.
Right now we're unlikely to see an aftermarket Skype client for Android because you can't do aftermarket native code on Android yet. (You can only do native code on Android if it gets built in when the phone OS image is made, which means it has to be done by the phone provider... and I'm sure Skype are working on that right now.)
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No -- and I own a G1. It does NOT have a skype client -- it has a fake little program that dials a phone number and then further uses some magic to connect up to the skype network. It isn't true VOIP at all.
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The gphone has always had a skype client. This makes me wonder how carriers can continue this type of control of the cell phone platforms. Openness seems to have more of an advantage on the cell phones because of the tight control the telcos seem to try to enforce there. Is apple repeating the same mistake they made with the original Mac (trying to control both the hardware and software) vs android (runs on multiple types of hardware)? Or will the telcos desire for control keep the software closed?
In hindsight, aren't you glad you were modded as insightful? I know I'd be ecstatic having a child poster point out how off my insight has become.
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Apple currently controls both the hardware and the software of the current Mac, so it appears they are continuing what you call a mistake. This mistake has gotten them a larger share of the consumer market than Linux despite stiff price competition.
What you seem to fail to realize is that Apple has market share because they have their own distribution channels. If they did not operate their own distribution channels, they would be in the same boat in regards to market share that Linux is.
Apple can make a pr
Re:captain obvious: it'll never be full featured (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about the "any other wireless provider" thing.
Look up UMA on T-Mobile. My BlackBerry Curve 8320 supports it, so I use my WiFi for voice calls when I'm at home.
AT&T may not want you to do that, but T-Mobile seems to be okay with it.
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Look up UMA on T-Mobile. My BlackBerry Curve 8320 supports it, so I use my WiFi for voice calls when I'm at home.
I have t-mobile. Their wireless offerings have the suck at least in the Minneapolis/St.Paul market. the latencies make skype unusable; web pages take 10-30 seconds to display, etc. And t-mobile's phones are generally as locked down as any other vendor. See also: Ringtones.
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You might be thinking a data-only plan with a Skype client would save you money, but you'd be wrong: Apple doesn't want you to do that. AT&T doesn't either.
I'm not sure Apple has much reason to keep you from doing that except for maintaining their relationship with AT&T, but in general you're right. But besides them not wanting you to do it, it's not clear to me that any mobile carrier's network is good enough to support it even if they were willing to allow it. Even current 3G networks pretty well stink.
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I'm not sure about the latest iPhones, but with the first revision Apple got a cut of the money AT&T collected from the contract, as well as the cost of the device. Anything that lets people spend less money with AT&T will harm their bottom line.
Not really sure I understand the attraction of this though. Nokia phones have come with a SIP client for a while, which lets you make VoIP calls and use any of a wide range of POTS bridges, rather than being locked in to a single one (Skype).
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I'm not sure about the latest iPhones, but with the first revision Apple got a cut of the money AT&T collected from the contract, as well as the cost of the device.
I believe that changed when AT&T started subsidizing the cost of the iPhone.
And ultimately I doubt Apple really wants to be a the mercy of a particular 3rd party vendor in order to provide service. They'd be much better off if there were ubiquitous high-speed wireless dumb pipes for which Apple could sell iPod Shuffles and forget about iPhones entirely. It's a better business for them to be in, and if they really wanted to lock you into a particular service, Apple could provide their own VoIP client
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I have the $35/month data-only plan with AT&T and my nokia e71. Skype in and skype out works fine over 3g and fring's symbian app. Quality is not as good though, so I will probably switch to a SIP provider over Skype. Which is also more convenient since SIP stack is built right in to your contacts. All you have to do is configure your SIP gateway info, then select your contact and choose "internet call". Easy as pie.
cheap VoIP available, but don't bother (Score:2)
If you want a phone with full VoIP support, get an unlocked Nokia E71 for about $350; it works on AT&T's network. It has built-in support for VoIP (including Gizmo), WiFi, GPS, 3G, a full WebKit browser, a 3Mpixel camera, video recording, and lots of other features. I have that and an unlimited data plan, and I still don't bother using the VoIP feature; it's easier just to use regular cellular calls and not significantly more expensive. So, the notion that AT&T is preventing you from using VoIP
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Why would Apple care about Skype?
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I'm extremely pleased with the 3G on my wife's iPhone (mine's a first gen, so it's a non-compete for that) here in Huntsville, AL. I've heard that the big city's (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, most of the West Coast, etc) can be badly under provisioned though. The only fairly large city we've visited since she got her phone has been Tampa though, and it was mostly OK there. There were a few times that it was only comparable with the Edge performance of my 1st gen phone, but even then it wasn't awful; jus
What's the point of multitasking? (Score:2, Troll)
Since the iPhone does not allow for multiple programs running concurrently
What's the point of including multitasking if you cannot make it pretty and shiny? I applaud Apple for continuing the fight to keep our lives pretty and shiny rather than attempting to make our lives more efficient and easier to manage. I mean, let's be serious, isn't shiny and pretty the real reason we carry personal digital devices.
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It may be a limitation of the hardware or some other practical reason but the iPhone doesn't really multi-task. It only appears to do so using some hacks that Apple has done.
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In all seriousness , the reason the iPhone and the iPod Touch do not multitask is not related to hardware or software. The sole reason Apple enforces the no-multitask policy is to ensure that multiple running apps don't drag down the system. Apparently, WinCE has a tendency to be bogged down when running multiple apps and Apple wants to avoid that.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/13/iphone-20-sdk-the-no-multitasking-myth/ [roughlydrafted.com]
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Once again, because Apple doesn't want complaints that their precious phone and mp3 players are bogging down. It's all about appearance, the iPhone/Touch seems faster only because in actuality it's doing less.
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"bitter iPod Touch 2g owner"
Er, you mean "shiny and pretty" iPod Touch 2g owner, right?
whut? (Score:2)
Can someone explain to me why I'd want to make a phone call over a crappy VOIP system from a cell phone that I bought to be able to uh .. make phone calls?
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Because: ... I'm sure i could go on..
1) the quality of skype calls is far better than that of a phone call
2) skype to skype calls are free, and skype to outside phones is really really cheap
3) many people prefer to use skype because it is so much cheaper, and as a result do not have a regular phone or choose not to use it
4) Calls using Skype don't use up your cell phone minutes
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Can someone explain to me why I'd want to make a phone call over a crappy VOIP system from a cell phone that I bought to be able to uh .. make phone calls?
Because the cell phone provider charges you an arm and a leg for phone calls. And all you REALLY want from them is cellular data so you can use a crappy voip system.
Cellular long distance rates are stupid high.
Even prime time cellular minutes stupid expensive unless you fit neatly into some bizarre rate plan dart board where you only call 5 friends during
Re:whut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:whut? (Score:4, Funny)
What does being a woman have to do with you having access to WiFi?
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You're using the MS Text-to-Speech too?
I have a hell of a time when visiting therapistconnection.com too.
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studying abroad (Score:2)
I was studying a broad last year and got slapped with a restraining order. I narrowly avoided an indictment for stalking. Be careful, my friend.
iPod Touch (Score:3, Insightful)
VoIP quality depends on what your QoS handling is. (Score:2)
As for crappy VOIP, that's baloney. VOIP quality is indistinguishable from regular calls.
That requires a minimum link speed and depends on what your carrier's QoS rules are (or if it's implemented).
If your VoIP packets get "best effort" service along with everything else you're sending/receiving (which is both typical with ISPs who didn't pay extra for QoS or configure it right and the fallout of the simple interpretation of "network neutrality"), you're hosed whenever things get congested.
Try running both
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OMG. "Max Headroom" Over twenty years ago. Time to crank up the geez-o-meter.
Sonny, the first machine I programmed for money used vacuum tubes - for the DIODES, too.
But before that I programmed machines that used relays to perform computations for fun - and to print my QSL cards. Built some, too.
My first personally-owned email machine exchanged email directly with IHNP4 (in Napierville Illinois). From Michigan. At 300 baud. (Because I had hacked the filters in a 110-baud modem to speed it up.) Uphill t
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Make that:
I had a {domainname}.com back when they would all fit on three pages of professionally-printed bound-book hardcopy. But the {domainname} part was the UUCP machine name from earlier.
Oh, look what Windows Mobile can do (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm not certain that Skype would work on a 3G network. It's not the bandwidth, but the latency. All mobile data networks I've used (GPRS, EDGE and 3G) have had *terrible* latency, and not only terrible latency but very unpredictable latency. If you use SSH over 3G, you'll find you type a bunch of stuff and perhaps 15 seconds later, what you typed will echo back. Other times, 3G latency is somewhat better, it only feels like doing ssh to a machine with a high load average on the other side of the planet. But
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I've tried it on my Motorola Q9h, using Sprint's EVDO network, and it was awful. The latency and sound quality made it a completely failed experiment. If I want to make an international call, I've been using "Skype-To-Go", which gives you a local number to dial into, which then moves the call to Skype for the next leg of the call. Still uses minutes, but far cheaper than calling France on my regular cell account.....
So (Score:5, Funny)
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Only need Wifi (Score:5, Interesting)
I only need Skype in wifi hot spots. Domestically, I use my cell phone minutes for phone calls. If I need to call internationally from my iPhone, I use Skype-To-Go, their relay service.
I only need VOIP when I'm out of the country. I'm not going to use iPhone data roaming because it is too expensive. But there are plenty of free wifi spots around the globe.
Fring has been so unreliable for me, an official Skype client has me very excited. When I'm in Cabo or Canada (or anywhere overseas) for a weekend, and I want to call home, this is where a Skype client is perfect! Find a wifi hot spot and dial away!
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Yeah, Fring is terrible. It has a serious delay whether I use it for Skype or VoIP. I'm wishing for a "phone API" on the iPhone and iPod touch, so you could make one program your replacement call system.
it is available in Japan already... (Score:2)
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Phone carriers and data carriers (Score:2)
I see a time when phone companies accept that there is much value in the data as the phone service. Actually, I already see this happening with phone companies offering wi-fi hotspots. In the meantime phone companies are going to drag their feet to maximise revenue from the existing system.
As bandwidth costs go down, it may work out to be cheaper in cities to install wi-fi locations, than installing cell phone towers, but until there are proper meshes we are unlikley to see this really work for moving pho
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This will never happen as long as Phone companies have a monopoly on their networks (wired or wireless).
They will fight to the bitter end to not end up as just a "Dumb Pipe".
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They already know. Have you seen the SMS rates in the US?
Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:5, Informative)
It's an arbitrary restriction and only applies to third-party apps. The aim is to avoid third-party apps draining the battery by doing a lot of things in the background, or preventing other things from working by using all of the RAM (the iPhone doesn't enable swapping, I believe).
In theory, this is a good idea. Unfortunately, the whole philosophy of the iPhone is that Apple knows better than the owner of the device (which is probably true in the case of a lot of the users...) so there is no way of overriding this.
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Does if you root it.
(Which is easy and takes about 15 minutes and no I'm not going to provide a link. Google is your friend. :P)
Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:4, Informative)
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/ [iphone-dev.org]
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Yeah -- it's only legal until you're sued by someone with a lot more money than you.
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Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:5, Informative)
That is correct. The iPhone's virtual memory model does not include swapping.
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iPhone uses the same virtual memory management that darwin uses (since it's based on a darwin kernel).
What you probably meant to say was that the iPhone application launcher (springboard) and API restricts running applications not blessed by Apple concurrently.
For example, iPod application, phone application, and many other Apple provided applications can run concurrently with other applications. This is also the case if you run any applications on a jailbroken iPhone/ipod touch with the application called
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Oh fuck me.
I totally didn't realize I was talking about *virtual* (swappable) memory.
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Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:4, Informative)
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No way of overriding it without quickpwn or some other jailbreaking tool.
After that you just install backgrounder and all is well.
Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:4, Insightful)
iCall [icall.com] has been available on the iPhone for about a half-year now. (apparently in beta)
It integrates seamlessly with the iPhone. Those skype guys are behind. :P
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In theory, this is a good idea. Unfortunately, the whole philosophy of the iPhone is that Apple knows better than the owner of the device (which is probably true in the case of a lot of the users...) so there is no way of overriding this.
Also better than a lot of developers (isn't there something like 25000 apps in the app store now?) who are brand new to mobile phone development and don't understand it's constraints (e.g. battery life)
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It would make sense for the iPhone default setting to be "No background apps" and allow the user to change the setting. But to purposely cripple their product -- and make the user jump through hoops to uncripple it -- isn't okay (to this user, anyway).
Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure it's the background apps that are the problem so much as what 99% of background apps do while in the background. The main reason to run an application in the background is to do networking, and that means the radio has to move from GPRS mode into EDGE or 3G mode, which drains significantly more power. It's not at all surprising that it causes a much higher battery drain if background apps keep waking the cellular hardware while it should be idle.
As soon as you bring up the cellular network to get data, you're spending several seconds negotiating with the tower to switch from GPRS mode to EDGE or 3G and obtain an IP number for the interface. Then, your initial DNS lookup, at least based on my experience with AT&T's EDGE network can potentially add another 10-15 seconds in the worst case. Pull even a trivial amount of data and you've probably added another ten or fifteen seconds. At that point, you've spent the better part of a minute with the radio draining significantly more power than it does in its normal GPRS/waiting-for-calls standby state. Do this once a minute, and you almost might as well be talking on the phone to somebody. Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it does drain a lot more power....
Re:Iphones can only run one app? (Score:5, Informative)
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iPhones can run multiple apps, but the public SDK does not allow developers to write apps that run in the background. Apple can certainly write apps that run in the background, though. The music service, for one. The phone service, etc. Additionally, developers for jailbroken phones can run applications in the background because they're not constrained by the official SDK.
Safari is another app that runs in the background. I've never really been sure why (unless it's to allow you to view the last page you were reading offline ...)
Lacking background capabilities isn't really an issue provided that applications save their state and that they launch rapidly (or in other words, the launcher software becomes a virtual task manager).
Re:My Question is This (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My Question is This (Score:5, Interesting)
You've got to start somewhere. Telcos are not easy companies to change. But if Skype gets a small toehold, people will get used to their free phone calls on their mobiles. Soon, when the market penetration gets high enough, they'll start complaining about being tethered to one spot. Hopefully, that will forces the telcos to (slowly) change.
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no
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Even better, it will only work on WIFI, and wifi is turned off while the screen is off.
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Even better, it will only work on WIFI, and wifi is turned off while the screen is off.
Not after jailbreaking [installerepo.com] ...
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I'm from Canada and I already have Skype on iPhone (Score:2)
So open a US iTunes store account and download the app for your Canadian iPhone.
That's what I did and just talked to my mom for 40 min (otherwise long distance call). The sound quality is way better than any of the other alternatives.
Re:hate to say it (Score:4, Insightful)
After a little over two years, I'm ready for an iPhone. Why? The Internet browsing experience is better. I rarely use the office apps. I use Word to jot notes down, I can use the appropriate program on the iPhone for this purpose. I tried using Excel, the cell size is so small it is practically useless. With an iPhone I can VNC my desktop and use Excel from their on a largers screen with zoom functionality. That's better than my WM experience.
Copy and paste is coming and it's the only feature I'd really want. Tethering is again coming. MMS I could care less about personally.
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you also can use remote desktop on your windows mobile device. works like a charm. i run firefox that way because the cpu in my desktop is way faster so the pages render faster.
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Yep, sad to say... your (stated) reasons fail.
Browsing, while slow as death using Minimo, works fine in a crisis. But make no mistake - browsing on any handheld will suck donkey balls, simply due to real estate.
Every other feature... I can manage every aspect of a 4 rack, 21 server farm with 94 workstations, along with a 20 slot Option21 PBX, from anywhere on my PPC. I have VNC, RDP, Putty, remote regedit, whatever. I even have reverse-RDP, so a desktop can "remote desktop" my PPC. I had my iPaq3900 acting
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iPhone OS 3.0 allegedly will have copy/paste.
Not that it shouldn't have been added in one of the first 16 public builds.
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We are doing a test rollout of blackberries, iphones, and windows mobile devices.
I get blackberries brought to me regularly because they are screwed up or the person does not know how to do what they want to do. I have not had a single iphone or windows mobile device brought to me.
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I was going to argue this, but I really can't. I'd never get an iPhone because of the App Store restrictions, but what it does support it supports very well indeed.
iPod Touch - required hardware? (Score:2)
I too would love to see Skype run on a Touch. Unfortunately, AFAIK, there is no audio input hardware (no Bluetooth support, no suitably wired plug).
So the geeky question is: what would be required to run Skype on an iPod Touch? I can see building a plug that would enable a Bluetooth headset for it. The final step then would be persuading Skype to support such a hack (er, 3rd-party product).
You can buy external mics for the Touch (Score:3, Informative)
I too would love to see Skype run on a Touch. Unfortunately, AFAIK, there is no audio input hardware (no Bluetooth support, no suitably wired plug).
Any of the external dock based microphones will work on the Touch.
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They won't work on the original iPod Touch (Apple disabled the microphone input on that one), only on the second generation.
Re:iPod Touch - required hardware? (Score:4, Informative)
Depends on version (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently the v2.0 hardware _does_ have mic & bluetooth support (requires v3.0 software to activate the BT), but not the v1.0 hardware (what I have now).
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You should try a program called "TruPhone" -- it's a UK company, has a program just like Skype, that allows you to make true VOIP calls with your Ipod Touch.