FreshPhoneNews.com

Skype has made the news official; Skype will now be available for the iPhone as of now and for the BlackBerry as well, in May. Skype will run its standard app on the iPhone but it will mingle with the iPhone’s slick UI. Just like the desktop version, Skype to Skype calls will be free, while Skype to traditional numbers will cost you a nominal fee. The VoIP will run on Wi-Fi network only and not on your cellular network. Not fun. On the bright side, the iPhone Skype app will support chatting and that too on a cellular connection. Yay. A couple of unique features, including the ability to use the camera hardware to capture a photo or to pull in a picture from your photo album for use within the Skype application, are also part of the bundle. Incoming conference calls can be accepted but the ability to initiate an outgoing conference call isn’t available yet. The best part is that the Skype app, true to the roots of Skype, will be free on the App Store. No images or details for the ‘Berry crowd yet. Considering that the BlackBerry app won’t be around till May, you may have to go through WES to see it. Let’s see. Enjoy the iPhone imagery till then.

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Skype is certainly rolling out a load of goodies to give developers a tough time. SpinVox, the voice to content messaging provider, has announced the availability of voice to text message conversion for all Skype voicemail users. SpinVox will convert the voice messages to text and they will be sent as SMS to a designated mobile phone where the users can read them. So even if you don’t have Skype on your handset, you’ll never miss an important message. Recipients of converted voicemail messages can listen to the full voice message by either signing into Skype or by calling their Skype To Go number. As well as being able to receive voicemail as text via SpinVox, Skype users may choose instead to receive voicemail notification via SMS or for free by email.

Kind of an interesting twist to the text to voice message conversion, but it has its utility. You can get more information right from the horse’s mouth here.

After the awesome application Skype made for Android users, allowing them to make cheap to free calls from their handsets over the internet, it seems like Nokia caught a fancy to the idea. The fruit of this fancying is that Nokia and Skype just struck a deal which will put Skype on all Nokia devices, starting with the N-series. And the first N-series handset will be none other than the N97 itself, set for a release in Q3 2009.

Skype will mounted in the address book of the phone, allowing users to see which of their Skype contacts are online and send instant messages. Nokia N97 owners around the world will also be able to use 3G and WLAN to easily make and receive free Skype-to-Skype voice calls, in addition to low-cost Skype calls to landlines and mobile devices. Sweet!

Skype, the company that brought cheap and free calling to the internet is about to give the same relief to mobile handset users. Specifically it will be Google’s Android phones that will be getting some love from Skype.

Skype is a unit of the internet auction giant eBay, and the mobile version of its web-based voice and text service is called ‘Lite’. The software can be downloaded for free to over 100 Java enabled handsets or those rocking Google’s open-source Android platform. 

With ‘Lite’ users will be able to make free Skype-to-Skype calls and low cost calls to landlines and cell phones in 10 countries; the United States, Britain, Poland, Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Australia and New Zealand.

As far as carrier endorsement is concerned, you’ve probably guessed it, carriers are definitely threatened by the move since their revenues are at risk if users start preferring Skype to using their call services, but the growing popularity of Skype is now forcing them to think otherwise.

Skype has more than 370 million users around the world and it’s positioning the Skype Lite software to also support phones using Java software and devices running on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.

The T-Mobile G1 runs Android software while phones from LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are Java-enabled. iFans don’t get Skype Lite yet, but don’t be disappointed, it will come. Here’s to free calls!