Posted by Alec Saunders
Monday, using the newly announced Skype over 3G for iPhone, I made a number of Skype to Skype calls on iPhone and iPad. The calls were made from my office as well as from the car. Initial thoughts:
Crystal clear sound. Never have I heard that kind of sound quality on a mobile device.
Sound drop-outs. Yup. Skype on 3G is great in a fixed setting. However, while in motion it suffers as the car roams from one cell to the next. It’s as bad or worse than an ordinary cellular telephony under the same circumstances.
Missing “must have features”. Bluetooth and Voice Dial. You really can’t use Skype to make calls while in motion unless you start the call first, and then begin driving. Ordinarily, I key my bluetooth speaker, which lights up the iPhone voice dialer and then I tell iPhone who to call. Skype on iPhone is simply not well enough integrated with iPhone to do this yet.
All in all it’s an impressive technical achievement, as many have already written, and I’ll be using it a lot.