In both rounds of tests, incoming regular cellphone calls, even when ignored, disrupted the Skype calls, by either cutting out the audio or freezing the video, or both. In fairness, this was also true when I tested Tango last year, and may have something to do with the fact that FaceTime is Wi-Fi only and is deeply integrated into the iPhone, while Apple doesn't allow third parties like Skype the same level of integration. In the tests with my son, we compared the Skype calls to FaceTime calls and found the latter to be much better, though hardly perfect. Skype does warn you if your network quality is too poor for a decent video experience, but, even if the app deems your network connection acceptable, the call may still look or sound lousy. Only a minority of the calls were truly satisfactory for more than a few minutes. Far too often, the images were fuzzy, or syncing between audio and video was off, or the calls would freeze or crash. And, in both rounds of tests, calls where one party was on a computer, as opposed to both being on iPhones, worked better.īut, in general, the service was erratic. Skype notes this is due to the unpredictability of cellular data network speeds and congestion.
In both rounds of tests, calls made over Wi-Fi on both ends, or even just one end, were better than those made using 3G cellular on both ends. In the second, I conducted tests with a Skype representative. In the first round, I conducted video calls with my son, using both Wi-Fi and 3G. I tested Skype mobile video calling in two rounds, in both cases between the Washington, D.C., area and New York City. It even allows you to receive video calls on an iPad, though you can't transmit video from the tablet, as it lacks cameras. Unlike FaceTime, it works with the older iPhone 3GS, though the latter has only a rear camera.
Like other products, Skype allows you to switch between front and rear cameras during a call. You can do video calling between two iPhones, two computers or one of each type of device.Īlso, unlike Apple's FaceTime, which works only over Wi-Fi, Skype's iPhone video calling, like those of some competitors, also works over the phone's 3G cellular network, though typically with inferior results. That includes not just iPhones, but also computers. The biggest is its huge subscriber base, from which you can choose to have a mobile video call with anyone whose device includes a camera.
Tango launched video-calling apps for both iPhone and Android last year. Various Android phones with front-facing cameras shipped with a video-calling app called Qik, which Skype just bought, though it says it developed its mobile system prior to the deal.
Apple introduced a free video-calling service called FaceTime that was integrated into the iPhone 4 and later added to the iPod Touch - both of which now have front cameras - and the Macintosh. But making video calls over mobile phones is a nascent practice, one that began to get serious only last year, when multiple smart phones with front-facing cameras came to market. Skype says that, in the first half of last year, 40 percent of its Skype-to-Skype calling minutes were video, as opposed to audio. Video calling between computers is well established. Its computer-based group video calling, however, worked well in my limited tests and is nicely designed. My verdict: Like some competing services, Skype's mobile video calling varies greatly in quality and therefore isn't especially reliable. And, last week, at the Consumer Electronics Show, it launched a paid service it had been testing that allows for group video calling on computers. A couple of weeks ago, Skype introduced free mobile video calling to its iPhone app and has plans to extend the same functionality to certain Android-based phones running on Verizon's new high-speed 4G network later this year. Now, Skype has entered both arenas, and I've been testing the features.
People ask others to "Skype me" or say they are "Skyping."īut the Luxembourg-based service had been a bit slow in getting into a couple of areas that other companies have jumped into: mobile video calling, and computer-based video calls involving multiple people. Making audio and video calls between computers over Skype is now so common that the company's name has become a verb.