Skype Officially Available For Android 286
After a lot of speculation,
Arvisp writes "Skype has released an official Android version. It allows calling via 3G and WiFi." One step closer to the carriers being just... carriers.
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Skype Officially Available For Android
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Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
At last! (Score:5, Interesting)
At last! but how soon are carriers going to block its traffic?
Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be interesting to see how this affects battery life. I love my Eris, but the battery life on the stock battery is pretty suck. Would something like Skype drain a battery faster than calling someone using the 'phone' portion of the device?
access rights? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More detail... (Score:3, Interesting)
So we like open source, but not open protocols? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do the slashdot crowd rally against closed and proprietary data formats like MS Word documents, but not closed and proprietary VoIP protocols?
Re:US only? (Score:4, Interesting)
But how do you quit? (Score:4, Interesting)
And it's OK, except for a few bugs... (Score:2, Interesting)
... the most horrendous of which is the same one more or less all other Android instant messaging apps have:
After about 10-20 minutes of the phone idling, the app is just closed in the background. Notification icon stays put, so you don't notice it, but when you try to actually open Skype again, it starts up right at the login screen and procedes to log in again. Nearly all the other instant messaging apps I've tried also exhibit this behaviour: Meebo, Nimbuzz, eBuddy, IM+ 3.x...
Other than that it's not bad. Decent power management (between 0 and 1mA of power drain in standby, compared to 35-40mA for most other IM apps), good call quality on WiFi (haven't tried 3G yet) and a decent UI.
Still feels pretty buggy, of course, but hey... it's Skype and the calls work!
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
Voice traffic is very small when in a data format, and no, data is much cheaper. Assuming a megabyte a minute (which is probably on the high end), 5 gigs at $30/mo is 2000 minutes. My 1400 minute family plan is $80/mo.
I think this is why carriers are instituting data tiers.
Re:Google Voice (Score:1, Interesting)
Thank you for pointing this out. In fact, I use GV with my old GrandCentral account for both in/out-bound voice on a "data only" N900 on T-Mobile (unlimited data only plan is $25/mo). Skype, schmype.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:At last! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So we like open source, but not open protocols? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because at the core, they're cheapskates.
Then why not rally against Skype, in favour of SIP? SIP providers can be much cheaper than Skype, especially for calls to mobiles here (Oz).
Most high-end Nokia phones support SIP over 3G just as well as a cellular call. N900 treats SIP, Skype and Mobile equally.
It uses g729, which is patent-encumbered but otherwise open, and there are alternatives.
Re:But how do you quit? (Score:2, Interesting)
But most apps will let you press the back button until you're out of the app. This actually does save you some memory because the activity that was active will unload when you back out of it, as opposed to continuing to run in the background when you press the home button. Most apps that need to run in the background will have a service component that runs in the background, and a UI activity that lets you interact with it. If you kill the UI by backing out of it, the service component still runs in the background. In this case, the only way to get out is to press the home button. That makes me wonder, did they disable the back button on the main screen on purpose? Are the UI and the service functionality all wrapped up in the UI activity? In which case killing the UI would also kill the whole app? Or is there a service component as well, and this is just a UI quirk?
What's a good SIP client? (Score:3, Interesting)
I absolutely point-blank refuse to use Skype for exactly that reason.
So, what's a good VoIP client for Android? I have a legacy Gizmo SIP account I use with my Linux desktop.
I'm aware of IMSdroid [google.com], SIPdroid [sipdroid.org], Linphone [linphone.org] and Fring [fring.com], but I haven't seen anyone do a good comparative review.
App permissions? (Score:4, Interesting)
As much as I love the idea of an easy to use and ubiquitous VoIP application that I carry with me everywhere in my pocket -- insane 3G data rates and prorietary protocols notwhithstanding -- I have to question some of the permissions it's requesting.
Maybe this is due to me not fully understanding the Android permissions model, in which case I hope someone will clarify what these mean, but aren't these a little overreaching?
Read and write contact data - I assume this means the Skype app stores contact data in the phone's address book, but it also gives it access to all my other contact data (local or google contacts).
Coarse location - In my experience coarse location, when requested in heavily populated areas, is just as accurate as fine (GPS) location. Why does Skype need to know exactly where I'm standing in order to route my VoIP calls? The desktop application seems to do fine without it.
Act as an account authenticator, manage the accounts list, use the authentication credentials of an account - Does Skype use the Android accounts and sync framework, like a regular Google account does? And, like the contact data, I'm pretty sure this also means it has access to all the other Google account authentication credentials stored on the phone.
I'm pretty sure all of these permissions are requested for legitimate reasons, but from what I can understand it also means the Skype app has access to some pretty sensitive information, basically your whole Google account. Am I correct?
Re:At last! (Score:5, Interesting)
If using more bandwidth costs the cell carriers more money, perhaps they should charge people for using more bandwidth. This is the only industry I've ever heard of where when demand exceeds supply, they simply refuse to increase capacity.
Quiz: If a bean farmer harvests 1 million beans per month, and they sell out the first day, which of the following would the bean farmer do?
A) Only sell beans to customers who use specific kinds of plates. This would limit the number of beans customers demanded to an amount they can provide. Since there is no way for the seller to know what kind of plates people have, they must pressure manufacturers of plates to enforce the rules. When pressed on the issue, complain that the only way to produce more beans would be to buy more land and seeds, which are expensive.
B) Buy more land and seeds and produce more beans.
Any reasonable farmer would choose option B. They would put together a plan, see how much more land they could afford to buy, and how many more beans they can produce on that land. For reasons beyond my understanding, telecom companies choose option A. They tell people that 3G has limited bandwidth, and limit their customers to using it for specific applications. But of course, 3G has no idea what application is using the bandwidth, so they make the software refuse to use the 3G connection even though it can use it and no one would ever know. Option B would be to build more cell towers and upgrade their bandwidth.
Re:Just tried it and there's a big gotcha (Score:3, Interesting)
heya,
Why not try a VPN provider, like StrongVPN, and use it with your Android phone?
You should be able to tunnel VoIP/Skype through this.
Cheers,
Victor
Re:One step closer? (Score:1, Interesting)
What carrier do you use for pay-as-you-go data? and how much do you pay? (if this is in the US)
Re:This is as good a spot as any for me to jump in (Score:3, Interesting)
*shrug*
Let me preface this by saying that I'm 31 years old. I have been involved with computers since I was born. My first gaming system was an Atari 2600, and my first computer was a TRS-80 Model I with a Radio Shack cassette recorder, though friends variously had a TI99/4A, Atari 800, C64, or Apple ][. I've never attended college, finding formal education to be far too boring. I am not a Luddite.
And frankly, I don't know how any of that matters.
Moving right along:
I initially failed to see the hype surround cell phones, myself. I used to watch my boss fiddle with his old PalmOS Kyocera phone and think, "Gee, I can do all of that with the Handspring Visor that I have in my pocket, and the batteries last for a month!"
I used to swear, up and down, that if my boss didn't want me to have a cell phone badly enough to pay for it, that I wouldn't have one at all.
I used that Visor for a long, long time, with it rattling around in my pants pocket with a couple of pocket knives and a work-provided cell phone, protected only by its own built-in case. I miss its durability and battery life. (It still works and looks fine, even though it was a refurb even when I bought it around 2002.)
Then, I got an iPod Touch. I didn't particularly want one, but it was a free rebate item on a fancy Netgear switch that we'd bought a couple of at work, and I ended up with it.
And, lo, the iPod was useful! I found myself looking at all manner of things wherever there was Wifi, and having a hell of a good time doing it. So much easier, it was, than using my laptop to do the same thing. And instead of calling back to someone at the shop when I needed a pinout for some obscure device that I found myself working on, I could just fucking Google it myself.
So when the Droid came out, I decided I'd jump in, because it'd let me do the same things in a far more open fashion, almost anywhere. Doing so was a big deal for me: Because I work for a Verizon retailer, and I didn't want to carry two phones, I had to buy the thing at cash value ($529, IIRC) if I still wanted the company to float the voice plan. And pay the $30 monthly fee for data coverage.
And you know what? I use it all the time. I've got manuals stored on it, Google at the ready, and damn near every manner of data available to me that I'd have with a desktop PC, but without lugging a desktop.
Typically, it's way, way faster than dialup. I've seen downloads come in at a measured 180 kilobytes per second. Things slow down in areas that are either very dense or very sparse, but that's OK -- I'm not ever without bandwidth.
And in terms of overall utility: I'm way more productive (read: less frustrated) at work, because when I'm out and about doing my technical things, I can find the data I need. Whether configuring a decade-old quad video switcher, or finding the relative headings of local TV stations to aid in aiming a TV antenna (and a compass!), or digging up a manual on some newfangled dispatch communications console, I've got what I need accessible wherever I'm at. One day, I needed an accurate frequency counter: I downloaded one, and it worked great, eliminating hours of work. One day, I needed a flashlight, so I downloaded one of those. Another day, I needed to calculate the voltage drop on a 2,800 foot run of 8 AWG copper, so I Googled a Javascript calculator for that. And then, I needed a bubble level. Or a free Wifi channel to set up a new AP. Et cetera, and so on, and so forth.
It does this stuff.
I haven't regretted paying for this thing for a second, even though the $30 data plan is a lot more than my wife pays to my mom-in-law for her own phone (much like your own wife) and the initial cost was way more than I felt I wanted to spend on such a thing.
If you can't find the utility in a gee-whiz cell phone, you're either not trying hard enough, too tied down to a desk to care, or stuck thinking about the thing as a telephone/ball-and-chain instead of all that is Teh Intarwebs.