Making the impossible possible: iPod Touch VOIP

I covered this as well last week.
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/skype-on-the-apple-ipod-touch.asp

You can't do voice over IP on the touch, however you can have Skype presence and IM functionality.

I'm SO disappointed that the tip I sent regarding Skype on iPhone was never mentioned. SoonR requires client software to be installed on your mac or pc, plus a running copy of Skype. The same folks who make IM+ instant messenger (for just about every phone but the iPhone, currently) have a free public beta of Skype for iPhone at http://s4iphone.com that functions like SoonR, minus the client software. You log in with your skype credentials in Safari (non iphone versions of Safari 3 work just fine) and choose a callback number. If you have skype unlimited north america, and unlimited incoming calls (i have both), your call cost is $30/year for ALL calls in north america.
Still not native VOIP, but much better than SoonR as it requires zero configuration.

It would be VERY cool to have an iPod Touch with VoIP software of any kind. I currently have an AT&T 875u broadband wireless modem hooked up to a portable WiFi router -- giving me WiFi practically anywhere I go (even in the car, at a client's site, at home, etc). With my current PDA, I can use Skype over my router (with about 150ms latency, though) and it's decent enough.

An iPod Touch would make life much easier with the faster interface and excellent web browser than my current PDA phone combo.

mlivebc--no chance. Among other crucial differences, the iPod is thinner than the iPhone. No way are you going to swap in all the missing guts. You've got a better chance of putting a larger memory card into an iPhone... or just wait a few months for a higher-capacity model.

My idea was a little different than getting VOIP on the iPod touch. I saw the touch especialy the 16GB version the perfect opurtunity for someone to transform it into a perfectly working 16GB iPod Touch Phone. What I mean is that someone take the phone capabilities of iPhone and some how modify the touch to have the sim slot and mic and whatever else the iPhone has. If somebody could get it to work and I don't see why not then it would be the best iPhone ever. You can check out my idea here and vote on it: http://thinkspotting.com/entrytype1_des.php?entry_id=326

@13, my screen doesnt have any real estate... i have about 20 icons on it right now, (24 with dock) and i have to scroll to see them all using summerboard... makes me wonder when the wifi itunes musicstore comes out where it will be placed on my springboard. i hope i dont have to restore it again...

gmac, as far as I've seen, iPod Touch does not have bluetooth.

VOIP would be a neat hack, but it's not going to cut into iPhone sales. Who would want a phone that can ONLY be used via WiFi? Handy, sure, but not essential--this will have very limited appeal. (Not to mention limited battery life.) You can buy a used PocketPC for nearly nothing that will legitimately, easily run skype all day long. (I've got a 640x480 Axim that I've been meaning to get around to selling for months--I'd better post it soon before its value drops to zero. :-) )

On the other hand, Apple can officially not care about this at all--unlike the iPhone, the iPod has no ties to AT&T.

shaun--yeah, no local storage is a sore point for me too. (More than anything, I'd like to be able to upload things via a web form, but with no browsable filesystem, that doesn't work.) For PDA functions, you'll just have to find online equivalents or roll your own. For example, Google Notebook--which I love and live in--doesn't work with desktop Safari, let alone on the iPhone, so for that reason (and several others) I wrote my own super-simple clone:
http://brian.brianashe.com/notebook/
Source--about 125 lines of PHP--is available upon request. (Only because it's too ugly to publish now. :-) ) Creating a to-do list is, um, next on my to-do list. :-)

Did I call it or did I call it?
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/09/05/apple-announces-ipod-touch-iphone-without-the-phone/2#c7182236

I would gladly get a touch if it could be hacked