Skype 1.3 for iPhone adds Landscape, call quality indicator ... STILL…NO…PUSH…NOTIFICATIONS

Seth Weintraub

January 15, 2010

iPhone - iPod

So the one thing that everyone has been after -- Push Notifications in Skype -- has been passed it over yet again. Instead, they've given us the following in 1.3:
- Landscape mode for IM
- Hints and Tips
- General performance improvements
- Call quality indicator
- Fixed call drop issue when returning to a held Skype call

Come to think of it, didn't AT&T OK VoIP apps on the iPhone? In October of last year?! Where's that too? Something a bit fishy going on wethinks.

You can download Skype from the App Store for free.

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Comments (21)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 15, 2010 - 9:35pm

Who cares about AT&T? There are dozens of other networks these devices are sold for and hundreds of networks where they are used on. This is just one silly American operator. The rest have had no such limitations for data use from day one. Yet Skype does not provide VoIP and Apple is patronizing iPhone users from e.g. downloading "too large" software files. At the same time I am watching televison recordings from a cloud service over 3G on my iPhone gigs worth.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 15, 2010 - 10:33pm

Skype kind of blows anyways in terms of reliability.

Annoying notifications isn't going to help it much. Vonage would be a greater contender in this space, but since they've been seemingly mortally wounded patent-wise by Verizon, I wouldn't expect them to be doing anything innovative ever again.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 15, 2010 - 11:52pm

me wants skype calls while on 3g :(

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 2:14am

They just earned themselves another rating of 1/5 in the AppStore

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 2:55am

Can't believe it's taking them so much time to add Push Notification...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 3:32am

I really hope they have a good reason to hold back push. Otherwise I just want to beat them up.

Jonny8 (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 4:41am

Fring is an App that offers push notification on your Skype Account. Really Works great, the only downturn is that you can't be invisible, but still nice

Jonny8 (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 4:48am

I use Fring, that offers push notification on your skype account and works great.
Only downturn is you can't choose to appear offline.
Still a great app though

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 6:15am

would prefer VOIP over 3G than Push

9to5Mac Noob | January 16, 2010 - 6:22am

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/NetworkingIntern...

Push is not a trivial thing. Do some research before flaming and 1-star'ing FREE apps, please.

admin | January 16, 2010 - 6:28am

Ha! I'm sure Skype and their One million downloads per week could handle it

Nacho (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 6:37am

skype or some form of VOIP will probably be built into 4.0 similar to nokia n900

Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger) (not verified) | January 16, 2010 - 2:34pm

"Come to think of it, didn't AT&T OK VoIP apps on the iPhone? In October of last year?! Where's that too?"

AT&T did, but unfortunately Apple's current restrictions mean that we can't distribute a 3G-enabled app in the App Store.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 17, 2010 - 2:11am

Fine, so VOIP you can't do anything about. BUT WHERE IS PUSH? It has been sooooooooooo looooooong since push came to the SDK...

admin | January 17, 2010 - 5:38am

Hey Peter, Thanks for clarifying that.

Keiffus (not verified) | January 17, 2010 - 10:04am

Judging by Skype's slow response to updating their app on the iPhone, to me it clearly indicates that Skype sees the iPhone platform as a losing battle. They saw the handwriting on the wall when Apple and AT&T didn't want them in the app store in the first place. By having to conform to crippling the app's ability to make calls over 3G was just a move to delay the inevitable. Because when carriers transition over to being purely data providers (LTE and WiMAX), Apple, AT&T and Verizon will have their own mobile VOIP apps to compete with Skype thereby crippling their pricing advantage. There would be no point to adding additional features and countless man hours. Perhaps in OS 4.0 we will start to see the beginings of this transition.

buy memory cards (not verified) | January 18, 2010 - 2:31am

As reported earlier that Skype goes 1.3 featuring Landscape Mode and Call quality indicator. But still Skype didn’t enable Push notifications even in the latest update and more importantly, why we couldn’t use Skype, or any voice over IP service, over 3G?

Ronny (not verified) | January 18, 2010 - 4:44am

I just gave it a spin and indeed it is much more snappy on my iPhone 3G. I would like it even more, if it would not recognize my "VPN over WiFi" connection as 3G, and therefore let me make call at work. Enzyte Review

Stunzeed (not verified) | January 21, 2010 - 10:54am

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9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 28, 2010 - 4:39am

Seriously, what is Skype's problem? Even Yahoo Messenger has push notification.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 03, 2010 - 4:38pm

VOIP over 3G has been available on the iPhone for over a week now, you can use Fring to make skype calls over 3G on an iPhone.

Where is this update?

Let's hope it's not more Skype vapourware *cough* S60v5, iPhone push notifications.