Thursday, December 30, 2010

Skype: Video Calling in Wifi and 3G

Around 1 a.m. last night my brother, Paul, texts me from across the house: "Can I come over for a sec?" I wondered if something was wrong. Seconds later he is bursting in my room pleading with me to sign in to Skype on my iPhone. Video calling had arrived.

Let's do a little background here so my enthusiasm for this new feature can be fully understood. Lately T-Mobile has been thinking they are so clever with the pink-striped dress woman. "Weeeee have video calling in 3G and the iPhone doesn'tttttt," the commercials taunted. They also have some dorky guy piggy-backed onto to iPhone guy, saying it's AT&T weighing him down. (You can view the commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7gaPWeZMdw)

Did I mention that Apple first started these commercials? You can't beat Apple at it's own game. In my brother's educated (via his Apple obsession and reading Macrumors) opinion, FaceTime hasn't been offered in 3G yet because it hasn't been perfected. They don't want to release some halfway done feature. No, I haven't used T-Mobile's video calling so I can't say it isn't top notch. But I'm going to go ahead and guess it isn't exactly FaceTime. However, I can vouch for FaceTime. And it's simply wonderful.

With that said, Skype's release of video calling for the iPhone was pretty much a TAKE THAT T-MOBILE. Well, it was to me anyway.

Back to 1 a.m. last night. Yes, we did sit on my bed and video call each other to test it out. First we tried it on Wifi. Perfection. My brother's physical voice was in sync with the audio coming out of my phone. The picture was also very clear. Then we turned off our Wifi and tried calling on 3G. Still very clear. But, yes, the audio was a little delayed. But who could tell unless the two callers happen to be in the same room?

Today we also tried calling over 3G with about 20 miles between us. It still worked very well. I am very pleased. I stinkin' called my brother over video from the passenger seat of my car!

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