Category Archives: VOIP

New Skype Mobile App

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Ian Fogg| Leave a comment

Skype Tests Software for Mass-Market Mobile Phones. It’s interesting but not anything like as earth shattering as their press release headline suggests.
The applet offers text chat, buddy list, and incoming and outgoing calling. But the telephony part uses Skypeout credits for a user to receive incoming calls so is little different to simply using the call forwarding option in the desktop Skype application.
Chat and presence requires the use of a data connection — unlimited mobile internet tariff highly recommended — so the applet both costs cash for calls, and needs a mobile data package! This isn’t the innovative VoIP world that Skype users have been expecting with Skype’s long-planned mobile initiative.
The other downside is the handset support. The application is a java applet that works on a selection of mainstream and smartphones, but there are some odd omissions, presumably due to the problems of mobile application development: Nokia’s N95 and N80 are supported, but the similar N82, N77, N96 and N81 are not, for now. Hopefully, Skype will expand the range of handsets before taking this out of beta.
For now, independent start-up Fring, is closer in spirit than this to a true Skype mobile application, and works on many handsets.
There’s a few other official Skype mobile options: for Nokia Internet tablet users; for Windows mobile users; or for those in the market for a new phone (3′s Skypephone) but none of these are ideal mobile applications for various reasons.

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Posted in Apps, Mobile, Mobile handsets, VOIP, WiFi

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Fring VoIP on iPhone First Take

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Ian Fogg| Leave a comment

A beta of Fring has just been launched for Apple’s iPhone. The downside is that it’s only available for jailbreaked iPhones (ie those that have been hacked to allow unauthorised third party software to be installed).
Quick observations, prior to trying it out:

  • Skype calls on iPhone are now possible.
  • As VoIP applications are not going to be allowed on the official iPhone application store, Fring has nothing to lose in releasing its application for jailbreaked phones now.
  • The limitations on official iPhone applications look like they will give a prolonged lease of life to the unofficial jailbreak community. Essentially, tight restrictions on the official development SDK are leading to a black market situation with the jailbreak folks. I’m slightly surprised here: I’ve not been wildly impressed with any of the unofficial applications so far and prior to February had been expecting Apple’s iPhone SDK to be jailbreak’s death knell.
  • Fring is not the first commercial application to be released for use with the jailbreak installer (see Devicescape), but with the official option looming, Fring won’t open flood gates to commercial apps on jailbreaked iPhones unless developers are unable to do what they want with the official SDK.
  • Consumers will be drawn to Fring for IM text chat as much, if not more, than for its VoIP abilities.
  • Fring for iPhone is still a beta. The jury is out on whether it will match or surpass the Series 60 version’s quality, or whether iPhone Fring will be close or below the more cumbersome Windows Mobile port. All mobile applications are not created equal, even if they are from the same company and try to do the same thing: the various mobile phone OS’s are better or worse at different things.
  • It’s iPhone only. The Touch lacks a microphone and speakers.
  • Fring’s VoIP will only work smoothly on WiFi. Edge latency is too poor for VoIP. On other mobile phone platforms, Fring switches to a push-to-talk type experience for VoIP on GPRS or Edge connections. Here, it looks like Fring have chosen to limit VoIP to WiFi only. When a 3g iPhone arrives, Fring should be able to work over the cellular connection too.

Everyone, please take note, I’m not against developing mobile applications or widgets. I like Fring.
But my view continues to be that given the cost of development of mobile software, and the highly balkanised handset market and mobile audience, creating a mobile application is only worth the trouble if the result delivers a product that couldn’t be done with a cheap mobile website. Fring’s VoIP and IM application meets those criteria.
More on mobile VoIP in this report:
Competing with Free Communications
and more on IM here:
Instant Messaging Growth, Quantifying the Link Between Skype, IM, and Social Networks

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Posted in Apps, Mobile, VOIP, iPhone

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