Microsoft is behind the times with its smartphone operating system. Windows Mobile fell behind BlackBerry and Symbian, and all were taken by storm when the iPhone and Android hit the market. BlackBerry is still holding on and may come back with a resurgence, Symbian finally looks like it is going away, and Microsoft sent a strong signal that it wants to remain relevant with Windows Phone 7. While this OS is reportedly a fine smartphone platform, it is late out of the gate.

What do you do when you are late to the game? You buy someone to get in, and make some noise. This is where Skype comes in.

Skype is the best known service for making phone calls through your computer, and is probably the best known service for making VOIP calls from your smartphone. You can associate a phone number with your Skype account (Skype-In), and can use Skype to call regular phone numbers (Skype-Out). You can talk to someone from your smartphone to their smartphone for free if you are both Skype users, and can even video chat if you have a capable device. What’s more, it is cross platform – you can video chat from an iPhone to an Android phone. This makes switching phones and platforms easy as you are not tied into any one particular system on one particular phone.

By integrating Skype directly into a future release of Windows Phone (8?), Microsoft will provide customers with a very compelling value proposition. Windows Phone to Windows Phone calls can be free. All calls can go over VOIP/data and not require standard voice minutes. All your calls can be made over wifi, reducing your data needs. Your computer can become your phone.

Windows Phone 8 – $30/month with 6 GB data and unlimited calling in Canada/US?

It’s probably only worth about $1, but still it’s nice to get something from them.

Skype has updated their Skype-to-Go service in an interesting way. You now get a separate, direct number for each contact you have. No more dialling your Skype-to-Go number and then dialling out from that (although that’s still an option). How does it work? Well, let’s say I have a friend with a regular telephone number.

Friend A: mobile 778 555-0001

Now, before this update, in order to call that friend, I could either call his phone number directly, or I could dial my own Skype-to-Go number, then dial his number to use my Skype credit. What this update does is it gives each contact their own Skype-to-Go number that you can call and it will go directly to them. Your contact listing will now look like this:

Friend A: mobile 778 555-0001 skype-to-go 778 555-0002

If I use the 0001 number, my regular cellular minutes are used. If I used the 0002 number, my regular cellular minutes are used, and my Skype credit is also used. So what’s the advantage?

Well, you can set your own local area code to be the one that all Skype-to-Go numbers are created with. Let’s say I move to Toronto, but want to call my family in Vancouver. That’s a long-distance call which can cost a lot of money. However, I can change my Skype-to-Go preferences so that I get a local Skype-to-Go number for my long-distance contacts.

Friend A: mobile 778 555-0001 skype-to-go 647 555-0003

If I am in Toronto, calling the 647 number will be a local call as far as my billing is concerned, but I am actually making a long-distance call. The nice thing about this setup is I can save this alternate number in this friend’s contact information in my phone and call it depending on where I am.

If you just have regular Skype credit, then your Skype credit is used, and you have to pay a connection fee which runs about 6 cents a call depending on where you are calling. If you are on one of the Skype unlimited accounts, then you pay nothing extra. Basically, this is a very simple $7/mo add-on unlimited long-distance package.

This also paves the way for very usable, very cheap calling on the iPhone, especially if you use an iPad 3G SIM to get a data-only iPhone plan.

Skype has been under some pressure from its userbase of late to add this functionality, as it has been anticipated for a while now and incorporates some very important usability features. Impatient users have resorted to tying their Skype accounts to Fring, a third-party app that acts as a front-end for many communications programs and protocols and is kept very up to date. Skype and Fring recently got into a battle of words over video chatting over the Skype network on the new iPhone.

In addition, Skype has canceled its plans to begin charging a small monthly fee for 3G calls, instead keeping that functionality free. You will however still have to pay for a Skype-In number and Skype-Out credit, but those can be had for very low rates considering what you can do with them.

Looks like it was just an updating issue.

TechCrunch says that Skype has disappeared from the App Store.

No word yet on if this is a glitch, or if Apple has just removed it.

I can confirm that the Skype App doesn’t appear in the Canadian version of the store either. This leads me to believe that this isn’t just a glitch. UPDATE: Gone from the Japan and Australia stores too.

The Skype website still has an iPhone app page, but clicking on the link just gives you something like this:

Some posts on the Skype forums suggest that iOS 4.0.1 doesn’t work with Skype.

Why might this be? I can think of a couple of reasons (all purely conjecture at this point).

1. It’s a glitch, and it’ll be back up later. (with one app store maybe, but with both Canada AND the US?)
2. Skype is updating the app, and this is a temporary effect from removing the old version before the new one comes up.
3. Maybe AT&T is upset over the loss of long-distance minutes Skype users save on and have gotten Apple to pull the app because it “replicates functionality” of the iPhone.
4. Maybe Apple is upset over Skype getting cozier with Verizon and BlackBerry in their partnerships
5. Maybe Apple is upset that Skype hasn’t updated their app to include iOS4 features yet and are pushing them to release a new version
6. Aliens (it could be anything).

UPDATE 2: Seems some users are getting a pop-up message when logging into skype on their iPhones:

Free Skype trial

You’ve got until at least August 2010
to make and receive free Skype-to-
Skype calls over your mobile
network.

After that, you’ll need a mobile
subscription.

Is the Skype app about to become pay-per-use?

Thoughts? Comments?

First, Fring made a claim that Skype was blocking Fring and in a subsequent blog post, called Skype cowards.

Now that fring expanded capacity to support the huge demand for video calling for all users, Skype has blocked us from doing so.

They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards.

Skype has responded, stating that Fring’s mis-use of Skype software was damaging their brand and reputation.

there is no truth to Fring’s claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.

The issue revolves around video calling. Fring was very quick to jump on iOS 4′s ability to make video calls, and enabled the feature in their mobile clients, allowing Fring users to video chat with each other on their iPhone 4s. Fring doesn’t provide a VOIP service themselves, but rather they allow connectivity between users on other networks, similar to how trillian, gaim, and adium allow a user to log in to their google talk, msn, AIM, and Yahoo messenger accounts through a single program. One of the networks Fring users can log in to is Skype. Fringsters could talk to their Skype contacts through their Skype account using their Skype number to make and receive VOIP calls.

Now Fring is claiming that Skype is blocking Fring from allowing users to access the Skype network, cutting of Skype functionality in Fring.

However, Skype claims this is untrue and that Fring removed the functionality themselves, furthermore claiming that Fring is mis-using Skype software.

Skype’s client does not offer many of the new iOS4 features that Fring is quick to jump on, namely video calling, background operation, and even push notifications which have been around for a long time. One could argue that Fring’s client allows Skype users to use these features with Skype, which is something that users want. Skype is notoriously slow at adopting new features such as these, and is also slow at their geographical expansion. You still cannot get a Canadian Skype-In number, but there are a host of Canadian VOIP services offering phone numbers for example.

Skype says this is because they want to maintain a high level of quality with their service and client, preferring to leave a feature out as opposed to implementing it at any level below polished. This is similar to how Apple operates (the iPhone was able to handle backgrounding applications via jailbreak, but it did slow things down, so Apple waited until only recently to allow this functionality as it didn’t live up to their usage level requirements).

The problem with this view is that Skype should realize that its users are people who want to try out new features – you wouldn’t be using mobile VOIP if you weren’t. Why go through the trouble of setting up a Skype account, paying for extra phone service, and jailbreaking your phone so you can get Skype running in the background if all you wanted was simple voice calling which your iPhone already provides? It’s because you are willing to go through some effort and hassle to get some cheap long distance. If you were relatively techno-illiterate, you’d be willing to pay the slightly higher long distance rates through your voice plan in order to avoid the extra steps. These are not Skype users. Skype users want features and are willing to put up with some issues to get them. That’s why people use Fring.

The sooner Skype realizes this and at least releases a second version of their app (call it the beta or testing version) – in parallel to their stable client – that enables these features, the better for them.

While this functionality has been available on the iPhone since a January update to the SDK, and while other apps such as Fring have enabled 3G VOIP calling through their apps, Skype has been noticeably absent from the VOIP over 3G landscape. Until today.

One of the reasons may be that VOIP over 3G isn’t 100% perfect yet. The 3G data network isn’t always reliably fast enough to ensure a level of call quality on par with that of standard voice phone calls or VOIP over wifi. Skype wants to ensure that their users enjoy a positive experience every time they use their product, so limiting 3G calls until the technology improved was in line with this strategy.

Why they are allowing 3G calls now seems to be answered in the press release: “The new version features an enhanced call quality indicator, which will help you choose the best moment to call.” Sounds like a 3G signal strength meter to me. Still, it’s nice to have some estimate of how good your call will sound before you make it.

In addition, there are some tweaks to the app. A faster start up time and some UI changes to allow quick access to the dial pad from the home screen will improve usability.

One interesting thing to note is that while Skype-to-Skype calls over wifi are always free, Skype-to-Skype calls over 3G are free for now. Skype-to-Skype over 3G will be free until the end of 2010, and after that, well, pricing options are being considered. It probably won’t be much though, considering how low Skype’s rates are now.

Maybe we will begin to see 3G (or 4G?) data + skype plans coming out with smartphones in 2011 without a standard voice plan.

First, you’ll need a Skype account, of course. That’s free. Then you need to download and install the Skype software.

Next, go to the Skype Features page, and sign up to make outgoing, conventional phone calls using Skype. You can buy credits in increments of $10, or just pay for monthly services, starting at $2.95 per month for unlimited calling in the US and Canada.

Next, go to the Account page, and click Caller ID. There, you can set any of your phone numbers as the Caller ID number seen by the people you call using Skype. Enter your Google Voice number. Skype will send an SMS with a verification code to Google Voice. Enter that verification code into the Skype Caller ID Web page, and you’re done. Skype says it takes 24 hours to activate.

It only took a few years, but it’s finally here: Multitasking for the iPhone.

The single biggest drawback keeping the iPhone and iPod touch squarely out of the VOIP game was the lack of multitasking, and this summer, it will be coming.

Today, Apple announced OS 4.0 for the iPhone, to be released in the summer with a developer preview available now. Steve Jobs announced over 1500 new APIs and a list of features for the new OS version, with the biggest announcement being the ability to run apps in the background.

The app-switching interface looks well thought out (would you expect anything less?), with a double click of the home button bringing up a list of all the currently running apps, sort of like an alt-tab bar. Switching between apps is just a matter of touching the icon on this task bar.

This is a game-changer for VOIP apps such as Skype.

Originally, in order for you to receive a call through your Skype app on your iPhone, the Skype app had to be actively running – you had to have Skype up and on the screen all the time. This made Skype useful for calling out, but essentially useless for receiving calls.

This was somewhat addressed with the introduction of push notifications in OS 3.0. These notifications allowed messages to be sent to an inactive app on your phone, giving you a signal that something needed your attention. Now when someone called you, your Skype app would be notified even when it wasn’t running.

While this seemed like a good solution, in practice it still wasn’t as seamless as a regular phone conversation. Testing with various VOIP apps led to different results. Depending on how long ago you had logged in to your VOIP app, your ability to receive a push notification could expire. Some push notifications were less than instant – often I would be notified that someone was trying to call me 30 seconds after they actually had. This timeframe wasn’t quick enough to allow me to answer an incoming call. On the occasions when the notification came quickly enough, in the majority of cases, the call couldn’t be connected by accepting the call through the push notification.

The result was more of a pager system. Get a push notification on your VOIP app, call the person back a minute or two later.

However, that has all changed with multitasking. Skype can now run 24/7 on your iPhone in the background, reacting instantly to incoming calls. You can be in a conversation, put Skype in the background, bring up a web page, and then switch back to Skype.

Add to that the new ability to change the background wallpaper, and it makes me think that Steve just jailbroke the iPhone

Update: “We are releasing it for end users for iPhone and iPod touch for users this summer. For the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen. And, for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen, they will run many things… but there are some things they won’t run, like multitasking.”

Looks like no multitasking for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen users.

List of features in the new iPhone OS 4.0

• creating playlists
• digital zoom
• tap to focus on video
• gift apps
• geotagging
• places in the photo app
• changing the home screen wallpaper
• bluetooth keyboard support
• spell checker

Looks like Skype might make another inroad on a US carrier’s phones.

Update: Skype Mobile for Verizon available Thursday