Its new one-to-one video calling features require a user-facing camera; if you have two cameras, you can use both and switch between cameras during a call. [Look-at-me! Look-at-that! Look-at-me!] Skype has yet to offer group video calling on mobiles.
Android Skype users enjoy better integration with the phone’s native address book than their iOS cousins. You can launch a Skype call directly from the address book. iPhone users cannot.
A new user interface looks deliciously iPhone-like. So does the video advert below, with its white backgrounds, folksy music, and shiny actors. The Skype client shown loads and works very fast compared to my own experience. Reminder to self: must buy a more muscular Android phone and cut a thousand people from my Skype contacts.
Android Fragmentation Alert: Video may not work on your Android phone or tablet. You need Android v2.1 on most phones and v2.2 on Samsung Galaxy S. Skype says they’ve tested video on: Google Nexus S, HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro handsets.
Battery Note: The app will stay open in the background so you can still receive Skype IMs and phone calls. sangolt88 commented on YouTube “Still no freakin exit button? lol.” So “Please sign out of Skype to close the application” if you need to preserve battery life.
First, the Android software shipping on TELUS’s new LG handset is Skype’s full Android client, not a thin-client. This means high fidelity audio and no wiretap-ready intermediate gateways. This is great.
Aside from coming with Skype pre-installed, what makes the LG Optimus Black a "Skype edition" smartphone? A Skype spokesperson writes: “The Skype edition LG Optimus Black will be the only Skype-branded phone on the Canadian market. It will feature a preloaded Skype icon that connects the user to the Android Market with one touch, where the latest version of Skype for Android can be downloaded. The Skype edition LG Optimus Black also comes complete with an in-box Skype quick-start guide and up to 60 minutes of Skype Credit, so users can begin connecting with the world right away.”
Nicely designed to recruit new users. When will TELUS promote Skype to all its 7 million mobile customers on all its Android phones?
Download now in the Android market’s Skype page. “What’s in this version: 1. Security update. 2. Calling over your 3G connection is available worldwide – now including the US.” via Android Community.
Skype Lite: Skype is half-baked on Android and it’s too bad, because you could really do so much with a real version… At the moment, it’s OK for text chatting, but the voice calls don’t work. I’m getting a “not available in your region” error message (I’m in San Francisco).
Hubert, you’re running into the Verizon-Skype exclusive. Nexus One is only available from T-Mobile so no Skype mobile (at least the voice parts) for you. Count on being shut out this year and most of next year too.
Skype mobile (née Skype Lite) on your phone
is a thin client (no heavy processing or networking) that
talks to fat clients (similar to your desktop Skype)
running on gateway servers (running many copies of the fat clients and connected to the Internet too)
hosted at data centers operated by your mobile phone operator.
So your Nexus One Skype app can’t find a Skype server at T-Mobile. So you get an error message.
Perhaps your error message should read: “Not available with your mobile carrier” or “Not available with T-Mobile; Click http://verizonwireless.com/skypemobile/ for options” or “Have you seen the Droid Incredible? Time to switch!”
I’m testing Skype mobile on a Motorola Droid with Verizon. I tried to launch Skype while other apps were busy with my WiFi downloading email, news, feeds, activity streams, apps, maps, music, podcasts, and television shows.
I get an error. Its text reads:
"Skype mobile does not currently work on WiFi and requires switching to a Verizon Wireless data network connection. This may affect other apps using a WiFi connection."
You have two options: "Turn off WiFi" or "Exit".
Doesn’t the Droid let me have both Wi-Fi and the Verizon data connection running simultaneously? Apparently not.
Skype forces an either/or choice.
So it’s not nearly as attractive to keep Skype running in the background. You must squeeze all of your other activity through Verizon’s tiny wireless broadband channel, even if you have lots of available Wi-Fi connectivity at hand.
There’s no engineering reason why you couldn’t be connected to both networks at once (beyond battery consumption).
Where is this limit imposed? The Verizon Droid? Motorola Droids in general? All Android phones?
Verizon‘s go-to-market teams had Skype in place last week.
Employees were oriented. Six months’ ago these same employees had never tried Skype. Now they know a few talking points.
Demo Blackberry and Android phones had Skype installed and easy to find
Local test accounts with contacts were created for each demo phone
Information cards for the phones were updated with Skype listed as a feature of each phone (right above Bluetooth!)
A small Skype sign was with the phones
The in-store phone selector software now lists Skype as one feature among many.
Inventory comes with a shortcut to install the latest version of Skype mobile for Verizon, a thin client.
Seven things to improve:
Preload the whole Skype client, not just a download link. Conversion rates are much higher with a full preload.
International positioning. "Call your family" in Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Korean, Ethiopian and Portuguese (my neighborhood) on store-front posters.
Unbury Skype. Show Skype on the first page in the phone selector.
Enroll. "What Skype name would you like to use with your new phone?" in the check-out procedure.
Top up. Accept payments for Skype credits in the store.
Educate. Data sheets and flyers for customers to take, explaining Skype, Skype mobile, Skype To Go, Calling Plans, and how Skype mobile is different from Skype on PCs or iSkype.
Front of store posters showing video calling (whoops, not this year)
Great rollout to the company-owned stores. Now to check the reseller channel.
A hot stranger will IM something inappropriate to you.
Skype‘s SilverLakeification will be complete, with a very short leash on strategy and operations at first.
Skype will serve 125 billion minutes of calls.
Second Life will serve 20 billion minutes of calls.
Oprah’s television show will end as scheduled in 2011; lots of Skype calls in 2010 leading to the finale as former guests make cameo appearances, holding out for a spot on Oprah’s last (highest-rated-ever) episode.
UK police will allege terrorists use Skype (like everyone else). Parliament will demand the PM bring Skype under control.
Skype 5.x will offer multiparty video.
Skype 5.x will offer team features.
Someone will attend a family funeral via Skype video. And forget they are on camera.
Skype will release a "naked Skype" public beta. This Skype engine, no user interface, will be free/cheap. Hardware developers will like it; web developers won’t.
Skypecasts will still be offline.
Facebook will add voice to chat.
Skype for Business will account for ten percent of Skype sales.
Nortel changes its name to Avaya. Or avice aversa.
The world economy will continue to suck. An American commercial real estate crisis will reinvigorate the Great Recession. Good news for Skype as more people work from home.
24‘s eighth season will feature Cisco’s new midrange video conferencing.
Google Talk will add multiparty video with On2 inside, and become a standard part of the Google office suite.
Skypers post thousands of videos of Skype calls on YouTube, thanks to recording software. Jeremy Hague’s Vodburner outpaces Pamela as the bestselling Skype add in.
The US student loan crisis ($700 billion outstanding) strains consumer lending.
Skype starts a post-SIP standards discussion about communications protocols for the 21st century.
Avaya will make Skype for SIP the default setting for new switches they sell.
Skype manages to get a television commercial on the air.
China’s troubled economy will boost Skype usage when families can’t afford to travel home for the Lunar New Year.
A team will talk for 200 hours in an uninterrupted Skype-to-Skype call.
Wi-Fi phones will ship with Skype SILK inside.
Six former Skype employees will become CxOs.
Someone dies, unable to Skype for emergency help.
You’ll be able to make iSkype voice calls on Verizon 3G before AT&T 3G.
100 handsets will run on Google’s Android.
Skype will release their homemade COTTON video codec, so they don’t have to use the ones from Google‘s On2. Higher quality. Easy, free license. Independence.
A court will find Skype guilty in a class action suit related to collecting small sums of money from customers but not offering service or prompt refunds.
Skype will offer to buy Tokbox for its browser-based video.
Skype revenue per minute called will continue rising from $0.06 as Skype trunking starts to contribute.
Skype will top $900 million in revenue.
Skype will sell small businesses pricing plans making it easy to budget and buy.
An IETF working group publishes avatar portability protocols.
23 million people will log in to Skype at the same time.
Skype loses juicy US government contracts over the TOM-Skype security compromises. You don’t know when someone you’re talking with is using a TOM-Skype client with monitoring software from Chinese security agencies. An audit will show Skype on 500K federal employee computers anyway.
Skype-like features become generic, included in every communications and collaboration product shown at Demo, TechCrunch50, Telephony Startup Camp and similar product launchpads.
BT/Ribbit adds video support to its platform for programmers.
Voicemail to email transcription becomes a standard feature in most markets for mobile and home phone service.
United Nations rescue and recovery teams standardize on Skype.
Skype sponsors a Festivus site for the public "airing of grievances" and videos of your "Feats of Strength."
Hudson Barton predicts a 2010 peak of 27,695,335 Skype users online, Total "real users" will be 67,596,505.
During our conversations with Skype COO Scott Durschlag last week at CES, Scott outlined Skype’ criteria for its software development going forward.
First was the emphasis on “liquid communications” through statements such as “Skype Whenever, Wherever”. Just as today you can pick up any PC or mobile platform and find all the Google Tools (Search, Maps, News, Reader, etc.). Skype wants to be on virtually any platform or device.
Pick up a smartphone, find the Skype button. Turn on the TV, find a Skype button, have a conversation. Open a web browser; start a Skype session. All this to complement Skype on the desktop. Today, besides on the desktop, you can find Skype on over 200 mobile phone handsets, several (Sony) mobile devices, Skypephone and Apple TV. But Scott emphasized, this is only the beginning. It will only start to get real when we see Skype on higher profile devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry or when we start to see Skype seriously back into the hardware device business with vendors such as Philips and iPevo.
Then Scott outlined four benchmark criteria that every implementation of a Skype on any platform or device must meet:
A key reason for Skype’s rapid and widespread adoption has been associated with its ease-of-use. Yet Scott says the Skype conversation user experience needs to be even easier to encourage adoption by a broader user base. Developing a more effective user interface has certainly been a focus of the Skype for Windows 4 beta program. At the Skype CES press conference Scott reported that, in a recent survey of users, 88% preferred the new UI to the previous Skype for Windows 3.8. But I’m still wondering if the Skype for Windows team could take a look at Skype for Mac and implement a “drawer” type interface to manage and select the active conversation. For the longer term evolution of Skype clients hopefully Skype also has a look at Dan York’s post on Skype’s fragmented product strategy.
Security is an issue that I’ll leave to Dan York and others who are able to cover this issue more knowledgeably and effectively. Suffice it to say that we would expect security to continue to be a feature of all Skype products, including those that use the mobile voice channel for placing calls from mobile phones.
Two take-aways from these statements:
Fundamentally we should expect Skype, going forward, to be a provider of real time conversation-enabling software on desktop, web, TV and mobile platforms. To use an old telegraphy term: Full Stop! For instance, rather than developing their own social network, we should expect Skype to seek out agreements with other social network service providers, such as the MySpace agreement. Skype is an enabler of real time conversations; it is not in the community building or social networking business. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, amongst others have already captured that space and done an excellent job at it.
These benchmarks also provide a basis not only for deciding what product offerings Skype will develop but also when they are in a position to release a product.
The new Skype executive team is finally starting to set some benchmarks and guidelines against which we can not only measure executed performance but also have a better understanding of where Skype wants to go.
"With Splashtop, you can access the Internet and your favorite applications seconds after turning on your PC."
"Be online seconds after you turn on your PC. Why wait for Windows to load when you could be surfing the web right away!"
Whether it’s Windows 7 or Android, people launch Skype on startup. Connecting to the network gets you "Skype dial tone," so you can make and take Skype calls and chats and sync your history. I want Splashtop on my next laptop.
At a Skype’s CES 2009 press conference today recently appointed COO Scott Durschlag provided the first hints of a vision statement for Skype under its new executive team along with some initial software offerings that hint at the direction Skype is taking towards “liquid communications” or “Skype Whenever, Wherever”.
In leading up to the new software announcements, Scott made a few points about Skype’s recent accomplishments and focus going forward:
Skype now delivers 8% of the world’s telecom minutes through clients that now support 28 languages
New software will drive a liquid experience on the desktop, web, TV and mobile devices
A key goal is to liberate the Skype experience from a captive device (desktop) to more user aware devices (mobile, TV as well as embedded into appliances)
41% of Skype calls on Christmas day involved video, only to be surpassed at 47% on New Years day.
New software offerings have to pass a bar of four basic criteria:
high call quality
super simple user interface
sensitivity to power management issues
security
He then went on to talk about new software offerings:
Release of Skype Lite, a thin client for Java-enabled mobile phones with Skype for Android to be available within a few days on Android Market on T-Mobile’s G1TM and Skype Lite general availability in the U.S. (in addition to several countries previously announced) resulting in Skype availability on over 100 mobile smartphones.
Internally developed new Skype “SILK” audio codec which is twice as efficient with respect to bandwidth requirements for the audio and video experience.
Skype for Mac 3.0 to be available by year end with the feature set of Skype 4.0 for Windows.
This afternoon Phil and I spent an hour with Scott discussing the restructuring, support issues, the TOM Skype Breach and how Skype will work with its developer partners to provide a win-win direction for the development and marketing of partner applications. These topics will be the subject of future posts over the next week.
First impression: it’s the first event where a senior Skype executive has provided in a public forum an outline of its vision, guidelines for achieving that vision and how it wants to work in the real time communication and IP-based conversation space. The real challenge now lies in the execution.
Working to confirm Skype’s Skype Lite will be available for the Android mobile operating system.
UPDATE: TechChuck seems to be quoting an embargoed CNET story no longer online:
"Skype announced on Wednesday the forthcoming release of Skype Lite for Google Android and other Java-enabled phones. Skype Lite marks the communication company’s first native VoIP client for Java. Skype is submitting the app to Google’s Android Market on Thursday morning, though it could take Google a few days to offer it for download."
Over the past few years we have seen the evolution of several conversation communities, some simply employing instant messaging; others employing both instant messaging and voice. Skype is the primary example with its support of IM, voice and video as well as auxiliary features such as file sharing (and, as announced tonight, basic screen sharing) but we are also seeing these services diffuse into Google, via GTalk’s voice and chat capability, MSN Live via Live Messenger, and, in spite of its trying to define who they are, Yahoo.
Truphone is a mobile voice calling service that I have used for a couple of years from a Nokia N95-1; it became critical in a situation I encountered in Germany two years ago. I have liked both the quality of the voice calls as well as the user interface, especially its use of the device’s native address book for initiating a call. While they have had some hiccups with their recent product launches, Truphone has become the leader in providing low cost calling from the iPhone while breaking the carrier barrier via Apple’s App Store. I will soon be reporting on Truphone Anywhere for BlackBerry. Now, under recently appointed CEO Geraldine Wilson, Truphone is making a move to grow their user base rapidly by leveraging the user bases of other services.
This evening at the MacWorld Showstoppers event Truphone announced an enhanced Truphone for iPhone providing connectivity to these four conversation communities. Supporting both instant messaging and voice conversations, voice calls to, say, Skype contacts are free provided they go over a WiFi connection. Calls to these communities can also be made over a carrier’s 3G network, usually at the cost of a local call. In addition Truphone is providing access to Twitter as one additional messaging service accessible via Truphone’s iPhone application.
In my interview this evening with new Truphone CEO Geraldine Wilson, she pointed out:
Using Skype as an example, Truphone’s enhancements set up an appropriate Skype client on a Truphone gateway and complete the call to the Skype contact, taking advantage of Skype’s peer-to-peer architecture such that there are no resulting termination charges.
By introducing instant messaging, Truphone is recognizing the key role IM is taking on in IP-based conversations where a conversation may start over a chat session and migrate to a voice session if deemed appropriate.
Truphone sees the introduction of these enhancements as a key to building the Truphone user community; Truphone generates revenue through offering low cost calling to/from the landline and mobile PSTN network.
Truphone is looking at adding BlackBerry and Android to their supported platforms for this service over the next few months. Key here are devices that support an application store in order to make user access to these services simple and trivial.
To avoid high roaming charges it is recommended that Truphone for iPhone be used either over a WiFi connection anywhere worldwide but only over a user’s home country 3G carrier.
These new features go live on next Monday, January 12.
Some outstanding questions:
Given that the Truphone application needs to be active for conversations, how will this work when other applications are open? Currently if I have Truphone as the open application on my iPhone, I can receive free Truphone calls and my presence will be indicated to other Truphone for iPhone users if I am in their “Favorites” tab. However, if I am in another iPhone application, I cannot receive “free” Truphone calls over WiFi; nor is my presence indicated to others. I look forward to seeing how the enhanced Truphone handles Instant Messaging when Truphone is not the “open” application on the iPhone. This is where BlackBerry’s full multi-tasking capability is a major advantage over the iPhone.
Calling Skype contacts involves providing your SkypeID and password. What security is in place to maintain the confidentiality of this information. What other security aspects are compromised as a result of placing the calls via a connection to a gateway that supports the caller’s Skype client.
What is Skype’s reaction to having Truphone siphon off what could otherwise potentially be SkypeOut revenues while leveraging the Skype user base and using the “free” aspect of Skype? We know Skype is working to launch mobile phone applications, probably this week at CES. With iSkoot and the Skypephone on 3′s networks, as we learned at last year’s eComm 2008 iSkoot presentation, a portion of carrier revenues are shared between Skype and iSkoot.
A major step forward in making low cost calls worldwide, Truphone’s moves once again emphasize that WiFi is becoming an ever growing alternative connection option to making wireless calls. At the same time it will be interesting to see how the business model plays out in a world where the cost of voice calling continues to move towards zero.
Download Skype for Android 2.0 from the Android Market. Available for Skype users in all markets, all wireless operators. 
During our conversations with Skype COO Scott Durschlag last week at CES, Scott outlined Skype’ criteria for its software development going forward.
Over the past few years we have seen the evolution of several conversation communities, some simply employing instant messaging; others employing both instant messaging and voice. Skype is the primary example with its support of IM, voice and video as well as auxiliary features such as file sharing (and, as announced tonight, basic screen sharing) but we are also seeing these services diffuse into Google, via GTalk’s voice and chat capability, MSN Live via Live Messenger, and, in spite of its trying to define who they are, Yahoo.
Join the Skype 6.X Text Chat Room