Comments on: Android Skype App May Appear on AU Smartphone?

By: T.Kimura

T.Kimura — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:50:57 +0000

What popped out first and foremost to many of the people at the press conference introducing the IS03, including myself, was the number of Japanese dumbphone features this smartphone is going to have. The iPhone, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia, and every single HTC model sold in Japan were building up the idea that smartphones = no IC/IR/one-seg/decome/etc., when along comes Sharp with its first modern domestic smartphone, turning that semi-common sense notion on its head.

(Also, to many – chiefly those who use Windows – iPhone-iTunes integration can be a turn-off.)

What worries me about this Skype move is that this will just end up being KDDI and Skype pulling a Verizon in Japan – leaving the non-au Android population in Japan in as much the dark as they were before.

By: T.Kimura

T.Kimura — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:35:14 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong, since I don’t own an Android phone (waiting for my two years to be up before deciding which way to go), but doesn’t the Skype app check what carrier the phone is on and die if it discovers a non-Verizon SIM card?

By: sas

sas — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:35:01 +0000

Actually, any Android phone in Japan running Android 2.1 or above can already use Skype. It just isn’t available in the Android market, so you need to find an alternative source. And it doesn’t require hacking or rooting either.

By: dvhh

dvhh — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:07:46 +0000

Indeed at least for a lot of foreigners that would be a very good switch argument, but I think the iphone aesthetic+itune integration is more convincing for most of them.
As a AU user, I hope this phone would provide at least as much feature as my dumb phone (which is by the way still great, when compared to other countries).