Rumor: Skype for iPhone nearly ready

Well said, shmooopy

Does not seem like there is an issue with Apple on this they have already said that voip clients restricted to wifi are allowed.

John, its probably not applicable for video but even if its just voice it is very useful. Let's say you are overseas in a hotel room with wifi. So you take out your iPhone, load Skype and call the states on the iPhone. You are not roaming because its all over wifi skype other party. It will be free to a skype app or you'd only pay the $.02 per minute to call the local number in the states.

The same would apply to a location where you have poor cell reception but good wifi and IP connection.

All this potentially could be done with your handset. You wouldn't need to be tethered to your laptop or carry another headset.

For incoming calls you can have your Skype account forwarded to your foreign cell phone, landline or your iPhone. Depending on where you are you might pay a premium rate to get the call but if desired you could call back with the Skype app at a discount.

All this would allow significant saving from anywhere in the world.

Also Skype chat is pretty awesome. If it supports that it would be pretty helpful to those who use it.

Can someone tell me what the point of this app would be if there is no video on the iPhone yet? Why not just call someone?

http://www.johnthrasher.net

I'm already using Skype on iPhone via Truphone:
http://www.truphone.com/iphone/

I was in Japan a couple of weeks ago and used TruPhone on my iPhone to change the seat on my flight home. Worked great!

The problem with VOIP on the iPhone is the VOIP stack needs to be constantly running to receive incoming calls.

Unless Apple allows background applications, it's just simply not possible. And furthermore, it needs the kind of integration into the address book, messaging app and other apps (camera etc) that Nokia do so well on the E71, E66 and even the non-smart S40 based 6300i.

For a decent VOIP client btw, check out http://www.siax.org/

Maybe we'll see it by iPhone OS v7 at this rate of progress.

It would be nice if Skype comes to iPhone but for me it seems to expensive to use Skype to call out.

For me MagicJack is a great option on my iPhone that i will not part from as long as i can.

Skype on the iPhone is actually what's going to keep me from leaving ATT and the iPhone behind. I'm forced to have Skype and Skype "landline" number to forward my calls to when I'm at home because I get absolutely no ATT reception where I actually live. Around town and at work it's fine, but at home? Nada. Granted, I'm on an Edge-only iPhone, so maybe I'd get better 3G reception, but I'm not buying a 3G or the soon-to-come phone to experiment and find out.

The fact that I'll be able to set up my call forwarding (set up as a Favorites contact) and then keep my iPhone with me and be able to answer the calls that are forwarded to my Skype number on my iPhone is great and won't keep me tethered to my Mac when I'm having a phone conversation. It also means I only really need the Skype app to support wi-fi, so I'm set there too.

Of course, the optimum solution would be better ATT coverage, but I can live with this solution.

Yep. I can confirm that from an even more reliable source... it's been submitted for approval to Apple already. Sorry to be a bearer of bad news but it only works over wi-fi :(

Skype works surprisingly well through Nimbuzz on the iPhone.... I've made numerous calls to relatives overseas and call quality is excellent. Only issue is that it requires that you're on wifi... The quality is much better than skype on fring... with fring, voice was choppy or delayed, with Nimbuzz, works very well.... only thing missing is video chat... would love to enable video chat - at least to see the person that I'm talking to on my iphone screen if they have a camera..... a new version of the iphone with a front facing camera would be awesome.

Nimbuzz also just added the ability to call out with skype out credits.