Of course if you have a Nokia S60 or a Windows Mobile device, you don't have such restrictions and can use whatever you want over whatever network you want.

wow

@Kim98: But you wont have so many other things,

though WiFi kills your battery...

@Kim98: Nothing quite like turning a silk purse into a sow's ear. Good luck with that.

@Redwraithvienna: What "so many other things" do u have, may i know?.....

@Kim98: No you just have the restriction of having a Nokia S60 or a Windows Mobile device.

@nikeplr: have you not been watching all the new announcements?

@nikeplr: do you really need a comparison chart between an iphone and a nokia s60 or windows mobile device? i would think that would be common knowledge for a gizmodo reader.

This sweetens the pot in a big way.

@nikeplr: A phone that doesn't suck. :-)

@Buzzed: Actually i have...S60 and WM have been doin all that for quite a while now...Wifi,SDK,Games,Push Email,VoIP,Wireless sync....lets face it,all these services have been around on other platforms,its about time the iPhone got on board...

trying to start a flame war? pitiful attempt though.

@drum: EDGE is worse for your battery than WiFi.

@mdm508: Come back and chat when apple gives u back ur soul :-)

Hmmmmm - You mean i could buy an iPhone, cancel the contract, and basically have an iPod Touch but with a friggin mic and speaker, no calling and no edge, but voip over wifi?

whats the deal with voip? free or costs money?

Question to my fellow nerds: Even though I have 35 MBS down and 3.5 MBS up, Skype can have some nasty audio latency. There's also a strange thing that happens sometimes when calling someone's cell phone: Their voice sounds like a garbled chipmunk. what's up with that stuff? Do you think we'd expect the same performance through a iPhone app?

hehe

no voip over edge

watch... they'll jailbrake 2.0 as everyone expects, unlock it ... and then use the FREE SDK, via Installer.app with the edge limit removed :)

The naughty version of SDK apps on Installer.app and the rule restricted versions on the AppInst ... oh and the SDK apps that devs dont feel like paying 99$ ... on installer.app too :)

@cylonite: not a war...my point is,when apple releases a product it should have all these services by default,like S60 n WM...now it seems like apple is doin the customers a favour...just not right IMHO

johnny... thats cause tradionall skypes kind of crap, get a real SIP or IAX provider if you want solid voice, skype is at its base an instant messenger with voice tacked on ... ya you can call phones but from day 1 it was an IM with voice.

@nikeplr: i agree... also where the hell is A2DP, and the rest of the BT profiles... also where the hell is the native video recording

Will it work with Google's wifi blimps hovering over your hoods?

I can't believe how gracious Apple has been with all of this.

Those guys in Cupertino really know how to deliver.

@phantam: In about 2 months,in some keynote these services will be released and Steve will have his toes kissed once again...

@johnnyabnormal: Since the SDK can access CoreAudio, a low level API, that could fix one source of audio badness. Others would probably still exist as timing problems on the network?

Holy crap..the phone is less than a year old.

Did all the other smartphones have those features in their first year?

hmmmm...thought so!

Go back to your bridge, troll.

iphone Skype FTW!!! Sweet

"This is gonna be huge"!?

Jesus Christ!! VOIP exists on every other smartphone. iphone does not = the entire phone market. At any rate VOIP on the iphone is pretty fucking usless - it cant be used on EDGE only via WiFi. Grow some brains people.

Wake me when it does UMA.

Really steve?? a wifi capable phone that can do VOIP. How very cutting edge. Glad to see the RDF still works.

@ratmice:

Thank you. This stuff isn't easy. If you try to do everything at once it will either never get done or be really crappy. I was an early adapter for the iphone because it never even crossed my mind that Apple wouldn't quickly add features to their software and release an SDK. For a mobile platform less than a year old the iphone is maturing at a breathtaking pace. In a few years the iphone will be going places that few mobile phones can even dream of.

YAY

The iPhonez can now do something WinMo's had for almost 2 years.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Apple releases a crippled device and every time they enable a feature that competing devices have had forever..people act as if it's going to revolutionize the whole world.

GROW UP.

eventually phone calls, internet service, television, and music (not too mention any other form of media that can be digitized) will all be free, and the internet will become basically an enourmous advertising platform

@labrats5:
That place you're thinking of...it's called "The World of Standard features". I look forward to giving you a balloon when your iPhone can do everything other phones already can.

Finally, VOIP done right!

@ratmice: all the other phones? maybe not but some of them did. Don't be an apple fanboy. look the iphone is a cool phone and the touch screen is sweet but it's Gods gift to phones that would be the motorola i90

i think this is a big step in the right direction by apple, but really, some of this stuff should have been released initially with the iphone. if you're going to push something as an enterprise device and then not release it with wpa2 encryption, the ability to use certs, and no vpn capabilities, no exchange synch, etc., then you are shooting yourselves in the foot. the lack of 3g data doesn't help either, but being able to use enterprise wifi can help make up for that. so kudos to apple for waking up to that. personally i can overlook the non-swappable battery and non-removable sim card (still annoying though), but no 3g? forget it. the fact that people keep saying "edge is good enough" just continues to prove what a ghetto country the u.s. is in terms of a cellular system. and speaking of data, the fact that you can't tether an iphone to a laptop is a pretty big drawback for business too.
but anyway, as i said this is a good move in the right direction. i think the iphone is a great device with huge potential, but it's just not ready for me yet. maybe by the end of this year or next year.

@legacye:

Yeah seriously. When's Apple going to release a totally shitty interface with memory-throttling apps that stomp all over each other in a beautiful cacophony of suckitude? WinMo's had that for YEARS...

I hope adium decides to make a messenger with the sdk. It has to be my favorite program for osx.

@Juggrnott:

well to be precise I meant phone manufacturers. I still think that Apple is adding tons of features at a great pace. I'm happy with what I have now. In re: the i90, how many years has Motorola been making phones?

And yeah, I am a fan of Apple products, that doesn't make me a fanboy.

@gothfae: lol. yayz.

@ratmice:

Yes, all the other smartphones DID have these features available in their first year.

Dumbass.

i thought this was called skype? and i've been doing it with mobile for almost 2 years, way to sell to the uneducated & ignorant apple... maybe you should rename the company 'republican'

@topmoo: The Company's CEO should be "Al Gore" Creator of the Internet!

@GadgetProne: Do I hear an urban myth being regurgitated? Btw, he does deserve tons of credit in the development of the "inter-tubes"...AND that quote about "inventing" is thoroughly debunked. Look it up...

...and then port that beotch to the iPod Touch and free phone calls all the time_

I am submitting this from my iPod touch. I am at a wi-fi hotspot (coffee shop). I ordered my Touch online the day it was announced. I upgraded the software through iTunes in January. I have chosen not to jailbreak my ipod. I am enjoying using it for email and maps etc. I want to remind everyone re: perspective. The holy Grail is the 'holodeck' on Star Trek. To that end, we are at the model T Ford stage. Perhaps not even that far along! The iPhone/touch is the first real Internet computer in your pocket. It actually works. Sure, there is a ton of things still to add. Keeping in mind the 'holodeck', we will get there....one day....just not soon enough for us early adopters. As for VOIP, I just bought a $50 mic dongle from Touchmods in France. The have a jailbreak app + the mic + voip clients = success! I mentioned I bought the mic. I still don't plan to jailbreak. I now await for touchmods to write an official app with the SDK. I have my mic all ready for it...using my model T Fordl dreaming about the Holodeck!

this voip is nothing compared to UMA. I can make calls with my cellular number over wifi/uma for free on my tmobile bb, i don't have to hack some program and hope my firmware holds up. maybe i'll look at an iphone in 4 years when it catches up to bb.

Great news, and the one thing I was hoping for! I'm sure Adium will get on board. One thing I can't figure out is why Apple isn't simply including their own iChat (AOL AIM) instead of leaving it up to a third party?

Why is it that when Apple does something that has already been out for ages, it is suddently NEWS?

As people have already stated, VoIP already exists on every other smartphone out there.

PSP added Skype months ago, it has had a browser for years. Granted it doesn't have a touchscreen, but the games are lightyears ahead of what will eventually show up on the Touch/iPod.

The most stupid example was when the fanboi journalists whined about how the Macbook Air lacking the DVD-ROM drive showed the way of the future - guess what, my 5-year Dell ultraportable doesn't have an internal drive either...