Apple: Inside the cult

Skype to shake up iPhone calling patterns?

The day that many a phone-calling nerd has long awaited has finally arrived, or will arrive tomorrow, anyway: Skype is releasing an iPhone app! Apple and AT&T have imposed restrictions on it, of course: you can't just completely bypass AT&T's cellular network and do all your calling with Skype. That's only allowed if you're connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi. (It's worth noting that the Android-based G1's Skype app doesn't have this restriction.)

David Cousey rages against this, though still thinks that it's "the end of cellular as we know it" -- that essentially we'll all soon just be paying for cellular data plans, and voice data won't be treated specially as it travels over those pipes. That's possible, but in the meantime, how are we to Stick It To The Man?

Well, consider this. We've all heard that the number of people who have jettisoned their landlines is on the rise. I'd guess that iPhone users are disproportionally more likely to have done so -- both because many of them are tech-happy early adopters, and because AT&T's iPhone bill is darn expensive. And I'm willing to bit that many of those iPhone-only users have Wi-Fi set up in their house. And where do we make most of our phone calls, if not from our house? Skype could be your ticket to having free calls from home.

(It's worth noting that my wife and I have the iPhone family plan with the fewest minutes available -- and we've never come close to running over our allotted minutes. I guess we're not so social?)

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