For those unaware, Skype is an internet telephony service.

At its most basic level, you can make and receive calls from other Skype users for free.

While Skype was not the first to utilize VOIP (Voice Over Internet), it was the first to organize it on a large scale and make it relatively painless to use. While not a brilliant design user-interface wise, it seemed transparent and straightforward. And “free” phone calls was a nice step forward. When they launched, not everyone even had unlimited US calling or you had to pay a fee for unlimited US calling – once Skype launched, calls to another Skype user was free – for international calls, that might mean saving a few dollars PER MINUTE to some countries. Skype is banned in some countries for this reason plus it’s much harder for the authorities to tap your phone

Skype kept adding featuring – one of the most important was calling from your computer to any phone number worldwide – while this was not free, in most cases, it’s about $.02 a minute or $1.20 an HOUR – it was a little cumbersome for many people who had to figure out how to add a headphone and figure out where the sound should come out of their personal computer but for many with overseas family & friends, the hassle was worth the savings.

Another hinderance was the person at the other end needed a computer and a broadband speed connection but Skype soon added a new feature where you could get a “phone number” so to the other person could simply dial you as if it were a regular phone. An interesting sideline to this is you can actually get global numbers so if you wanted to give the appearance you had offices in NY, Geneva and SF, you could buy a number in those cities and forward all your calls to your bedroom in Des Moines.

There are some other Skype functions and features but on to the iPhone app revie.

It’s free and a limited subset of the features available with the actual skype app but it serves its purpose and function very well.

If you do not have a Skype account already, just TAP CREATE ACCOUNT on the login page of the iPhone app.

It’s pretty straightforward. The first screen is your Skype account LOG IN. After you log in, your Skype contacts will auto load.

And of course, once you are logged in and set up, all your Skype contacts as well as your “regular” contacts will all show up.

Other Skype users will have a “name” as with any email or text contact. And phone numbers for other non-Skype users, of course.

Most important – you need a WiFi connection (not 3G).

Calling or Receiving Skype Calls From Other Skypers

Just tap on the name and number as you would normally make a phone call. You can call up any Skype computer user, you just have to wait for them to”accept” your call.

Calling you is a bigger deal as Skype cannot “activate” itself – you need to have the Skype app running. Presuming this will be fixed in iPhone Software 3.0? So, if someone wants to call you via Skype, you either have to have the app running via a pre arranged time or someone can send you a SMS telling you to launch Skype.

So, it’s inconvenient but since Skype only works via WiFi – Skype is hardly like using a regular phone anyway – you’re using Skype to save some money or a lot of money.

Calling & Receiving Calls From Mobile-Landline Phones

You can tap to call anyone worldwide with the phone number if they do not have Skype. To make calls and receive calls from regular phones, you will need to have credits in your Skype account. You will need to do this on your computer. You can buy credits – minimum is $10 – in most cases, it’s around $.02 a minute to receive or call to a “regular phone.” Generally, this is way cheaper or slightly cheaper than just picking up your regular phone and clearly way, way cheaper than using your typical US cell phone to call internationally. You can also buy a Skype phone number but in this case (verus your computer), it’s not all that convenient since you have to a) have a WiFi signal and b) have Skype turned on … so clearly, the iPhone Skype app at this point is 98% for dialing out.

However, if you have purchased the voicemail feature, people can record a message you can retrieve and call back later.

And this is your profile/pref/my account page – pretty straightforward.

On the computer version of Skype, video calls are free – but since the iPhone has no video camera, that feature is not available here. The SKYPE CREDIT line will list how much is in your account.

An excellent feature of Skype.com is its customer service. If your account hasn’t been used in 6 months, they will send you an email to use a tiny portion of your credit before they clear your credit. You can make a quick call to yourself for $.02 and it resets the 6-month balance window.

Sound Quality

Great. Everyone that I’ve talked to says it sounds just like the regular phone/iPhone.

Glitches?

My first attempt at calling from the Skype app to a Skype computer user resulted in a couple dropped conversations midway but when they called back on their Skype account to me, no problems for the next 30-minutes.

I also made a couple Skype iPhone app calls to regular phones and it worked just fine.

So, it might not be bulletproof for you to start doing your business on it but it seems to function pretty well with no obvious problems.

No Bluetooth

As of now, no bluetooth earpiece works with it but the speaker phone sound quality seemed fine.

iTouch Into Phone

Of course, for those with an iTouch, here’s the best way to turn your iTouch into a phone when you are at a WiFi spot. The newer iTouch’s have speakers but you will need a microphone.

Summary

Of course, you need WiFi to make and receive calls. It makes logical sense as of course, your phone company would prefer you pay for calls but when you’re at home or have access to WiFi, it’s a great second alternative for MAKING CALLS. Since calls are free to Skype users worldwide or a couple pennies per minute, it’s the cheapest deal and no hassles of trying to guess if your phone card might run out (though clearly if you only a few dollars in your Skype credit, you probably want to keep your call to less than 2 hours ).

It’s not so great for receiving calls unless you have the app on.

It seems to work pretty well or no worse than the dropouts from the computer to compter version. You can access your entire ADDRESS BOOK contacts without having to add anything and the sound quality is great.

So, if you make a lot of international calls, it’s a great way to go.

Get Skyped!

Click on the graphic or this link to launch iTunes.