Comment by catone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by catone | Hacker News Reader

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Skype for the iPhone sounds great -- I'd love to be able to easily make free calls over wifi using my Skype Out account (the current Skype-enabled apps like TruPhone fall short, imho).

But, and correct me if I'm wrong, without background processes Skype for the iPhone can't take _incoming_ calls unless it is running. Which means that it will never be able to completely replace my ATT minutes for calling while connected to wifi. It would be amazing to take calls via my iPhone on my Skype In number, but it's not feasible (no possible?) to have to keep the app open and active all the time to do it.

Not Skype's fault, but a major problem with the iPhone, in my opinion.

With iPhone OS 3 due this summer, Skype should be able to rely on the notification service for taking incoming calls. It would notify the user that there's a call waiting and let you open Skype to accept it.

If used with 'Backgrounder' Skype can receive incoming calls. Backgrounder is a Cydia app (available on jailbroken iphones) to allow one background process to run at all times.

It would never be able to take incoming calls while out anyways because I assume using it over 3G is disabled.

One way they could get around this though is to do something Grand Central-esque where the calls get forwarded through a number skype owns and then to your phone number (though, this still uses minutes and defeats the purpose a bit).

But it could take incoming calls via wifi. 3G would be required only if you needed ~100% connectivity. In a wifi-only Skype app on an iPhone that supported background processes, it could auto connect to wifi networks whenever available and take incoming calls via Skype In... when there isn't wifi available it would be akin to the way your phone can't take calls when you have no service.

Anyway, according to the PC World article, Skype for the G1 works over 3G... I suppose that'd be an ATT vs. T-Mobile issue, though.

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