All of VoIP-land is a-flutter with the reported launch plans of Skype for iPhone at CTIA. While having a native client for accessing the No. 1 international voice provider is certainly a nice-to-have, Skype might find itself facing competition from other clients that enable Skype on the iPhone OS, along with plenty of extras that Skype doesn’t have, like social networking integration.
According to the mainstream media-sanctioned tech blogger Om Malik at GigaOM, a “tipster, a very reliable one” has told him that Skype is almost ready to launch a client for the iPhone, maybe as soon as next week. Skype clients are already available for Android and Windows Mobile handsets, and Nokia has embedded the client in certain devices.
But companies like Fring, TruPhone and Nimbuzz already offer a way to access Skype via the iPhone, plus more. TruPhone’s client allows Skype-to-Skype calling and messaging, but also integrates the ability to make low-cost international calls over Wi-Fi or cellular, and it integrates IM functionality from MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. It also has Twitter and aggregates in Google Talk.
Nimbuzz meanwhile offers the ability to call landlines and mobile phones with Skype Out, and also make free calls over Wi-Fi (via IM, to boot). Nimbuzz has a total of 10 VoIP partners, including Gizmo5, Vyke, sipgate and A1. And it has social networking, too.
Meanwhile Fring allows free mobile calls on iPhone via Wi-Fi using its own VoIP client, Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ and Google Talk, plus it wraps in Twitter.
It remains to be seen if Skype becomes merely a piece of a bigger iPhone VoIP superclient movement, and if it will have a hard time showing up late to the iPhone party. It’s a sure bet however that either way, a significant swath of soft-client-based Skype users will leap at the chance of transferring what they know and love to the iPhone platform.
