One Shot Design

Founded in the Baltic area in 2003, Skype released a cross-platform software allowing to carry out chat, VOIP and later, video-calls, over a theoretically encrypted¹ network. The startup was acquired by eBay in 2005 and it steadily grew in popularity to become the World’s #1 chat and VOIP software, boasting over 300 million users. Skype doesn’t charge calls to other Skype users, but the charge for calls to landlines is hard to beat, sometimes amounting to a meager thousandth ($ 0.001) of dollar per minute.

The software has been ported to Microsoft desktop Windows, Windows Mobile, Apple Inc. OSX, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and AmigaOS. A version for Google’s android platform is available since January 2009 and the company announced today that a release of the application will be available on the iPhone application store.

I had reported on a SMC Skype WiFi phone used to make € 0.003 a-minute-calls to landlines in Western countries. Last week I decided to subscribe for unlimited calls to Europe and a real phone number for receiving calls. I can make calls either with my SMC WiFi handset, my Windows Mobile WiFi-enabled PDA or one of my GNU/Linux laptops with appropriate headset. All in all, it costs much less than a traditional phone line from my ISP. The Skype network is still unstable, with a few seconds of communication mash-up every 30 minutes and a communication drop every 2 hours, but the appeal of huge savings makes me bear with the flaws.

Skype for the iPhone (and the iPod Touch) is great news for Apple Inc. product owners, who will now be able to make some phone calls for free using WiFi or their subscription’s unlimited internet traffic. Needless to say, it will leave network carriers who planned to cash in on mobile phone traffic with a bitter taste. they might not let Apple Inc. get away with it.

¹: Reports do suggest that in 2006 Skype agreed to implement keyword filters to be allowed by authorities to run services in China. Several Western governments are talking about attempts to crack down the encryption or simply putting pressure to allow wiretapping; and the proprietary nature of Skype software does fuel suspicion over some sort of backdoor access.

Barcelona, Spain – British mobile operator Vodafone has unveiled a new Android mobile phone at the Mobile World Congress. The HTC Magic will be the second phone featuring Google’s Linux-based operating system to enter the market. The Magic will be available to Vodafone customers in the UK, Germany, Spain and France; and it won’t be bundled with a SIM card in Italy.

China-based Huawei, maker of the Vodafone 710 and 716, plans to start selling Android phones in the third quarter of 2009. The company is also considering other operating systems such as Symbian and an embedded Linux from the LiMo Foundation.

According to The Wall Street Journal, sales of the recently launched BlackBerry Storm amounted to 0.5 million units eleven weeks after being put on the market. In comparison, Apple sold 1.0 million iPhones G3 in the first 3 days, totalling 6.89 million in the 4^th quarter of 2008 and beating RIM record sales of 5.6 million Blackberry units in a full quarter.

RIM considers the Storm a success and is reported to have 0.25 million units manufactured per week. That is roughly 1/3 of the 0.8 million units Apple is rumored to have assembled each week.

The rumor is that Wal-Mart will likely be putting the iPhone on its shelves. Journalists draw from this that the iPhone has become a mainstream product like the iPod, and is no longer confined to the elite.

Gizmodo published an assessment of usability of so-called “Real Internet”-enabled phones. Despite a lack of Flash playback, the iPhone is the outstanding winner.

Tags: comparison, iphone, smartphone