Implementing Skype on the iPhone

Question

I would like to build an app for the iPhone which uses Skype service with more features.

Now I know that Fring made Skype calls available on the iPhone, so it must be feasible.

The question is, how to build it in a way that it'll work as same as Skype app or Fring.

In this blog post, that guy offers using "SoonR Talk", but The caveat is that it uses two SkypeOut calls and conferences the two. So you'll use double the SkypeOut credits.

Any information about Fring and Skype API would be helpful. Thanks.

Answer 1

Officially, it looks like SkypeKit may eventually provide support for this, but right now it appears to be limited to the desktop.

Answer 2

Shai, Fring operated a Skype farm with a zillion instances of Skype running. The fring iPhone app talked to the Fring servers, which talked to the Fring(Skype) servers, which talked to the Skype network. It's not a quick, cheap, simple, or easy architecture.

Skype's iPhone app, on the other hand, is almost a full client. It signs into Skype's authentication service, does most of the p2p thing (no supernoding or relaying), and offers most of the Skype modes (no video, no file transfer, no screensharing, etc.).

Brad's right that you'd need to build your app atop the SkypeKit SDK (to do the iSkype approach) or you'd need to invest a lot do things the Fring way.

Neither approach is supported by Skype and both probably involve you breaching Skype's TOS/EULA.

Until Skype offers a solution, check out Twilio and Voxeo for PSTN services.