Huge! New Skype iPhone App Brings Video Calling to 521M Active Users
By: Hillel Fuld
It is a good day for geeks today. The new Skype 3.0 for iOS was just released and it brings with it the most coveted feature of all, video calling. If you have an iPhone 4, iPhone 3Gs, iPod Touch 3rd or 4th generation, or an iPad, you will be able to make a video call to your Skype contacts. Of course, if your device lacks a camera, you will not able to send them video but you can see them.
The video calling works over Wifi to compete with Apple’s very own Facetime (and surprisingly, the quality DOES compete) as well as 3G, which blows Facetime out of the water. I tried it over 3G and compared to the only other app I know that does iPhone 3g video calling, Tango, Skype is the clear winner by a mile.
The video was clear and crisp with absolutely zero delay and the app itself is designed to perfection with an intuitive UI and a superior user experience. It was just last week that Skype went down for two whole days, so when I first heard that the new Skype with video was released, my first thought was “how are they going to handle the bandwidth”?
So far so good and the app is working flawlessly despite the obvious online buzz and resulting downloads. The reason this is so huge, and it is, is because video calling has been tried before but it really never went mainstream due to some obvious barriers. GSM video calling did not take off because there are not too many phones that have front facing cameras and GSM video calls only work if both sides have them (some work with one if their device supports it, but it is rare.)
Facetime is quite popular but with the barrier of iPhone to iPhone and only over Wifi, how far can it really go? Skype has a whopping 521 million users, the same numbers as Facebook, so it is pretty darn mainstream and now all iOS users can call their grandmothers on their home PC using the new Skype app. Like I said, huge!
Tango still has the advantage of an Android app but I am quite certain the Skype Android app with video support is around the corner but again, Skype is Skype, everyone has it. In other news, the latest rumors all indicate that iPad 2 will include cameras so it is safe to assume, we will soon be seeing many people in the streets with a 10′ tablet talking to their spouses… Good times.
Have you tried the app? What were your initial impressions and how do you think this will affect the world of communication?
