There is nothing like a bit of healthy competition to spur interest in a sector and Skype's announcement of iPhone support today will do exactly that for mobile VoIP.
The rival welcoming the iPhone announcement is Truphone – whose package for the iPhone was there right at the start of the Apple iTunes App store.
Truphone is claiming, naturally, that it is way ahead of its rival. That's because – any way you look at it – Skype is reliant on Wi-Fi access. By contrast, with its Anywhere package, Truphone can take full advantage of 3G when Wi-Fi is missing.
That's not to say that Skype doesn't use 3G/EDGE at all. It's just that all the Skype facilities aren't available without Wi-Fi.
Another advantage which Truphone points to is its ability to communicate with multiple IM services – not just the one, like Skype.
Truphone was also implying that using its Anywhere service, it is perfectly possible to call a Skype buddy even if you have no Wi-Fi access.
The same wouldn't be true with Skype for iPhone.
Mobile Software Insight is looking into this but we reckon that your Skype buddy would need to have subscribed to SkypeIn
for that to work.
