Skype review

Mark Mackay

We review Skype for the iPhone, an app that lets you communicate while bypassing your telephone bill

Published on Sep 4, 2009

Skype is one iPhone app that wont require an introduction for many . For those that are unfamiliar with Skype, it is an online telecommunications service that allows free instant messaging and phone calls to other Skype users. You can also call non-Skype numbers at discount prices in a pay-as-you-go format.

The first thing you’ll need to do is create a free account by heading over to www.skype.com and then log into the app on your iPhone. The first time we logged in, we got a message on screen telling us that Skype was adding our contacts. Disappointingly though, this failed and the contact list wasn’t added.

We manually added a couple to test out the phone out were immediately hit with the second problem. An on screen message told us that ‘Skype calls over 3G networks are currently not allowed due to contractual restrictions.’ This means that if you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection then you’ll be using the old school method and dialing straight from the hand set.

Considering that Skype only provides free calls to other Skype phone numbers, the usefulness of the app was starting to look a little limited. What’s more, you can only receive Skype calls if the app is actively running. Finally, a Skype number must be purchased which you can do via the ‘info’ menu screen in the app.

Other features in the Skype repertoire of communications include a chat function but, at the time of writing there is no SMS feature like there is on the PC version. The Chat feature worked well enough and is pretty standard as far as IM services go.

The ‘My Info’ screen is basically the menu and provides control over the app. From it you can edit your profile, see how much credit you have and check your voicemail, the latter of which required the purchasing of an online number.

The fact that Skype can be used on the iPod Touch is little compensation for the fiddliness and lack of usability. You need to jump through a lot of hoops to get things up and running. We can only imagine the app being useful for someone that spends a considerable amount of time on the phone to a person or persons that also have an iPhone or iPod Touch, otherwise it’s a waste of megabytes on your storage. Hopefully Skype on the iPhone will improve over time like the PC version has.