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Skype vs. 3G iPhone

The "Independent" Skype Journal (aka The Skype Cheerleading Squad) has published a list of "advantages" of Skype over the 3G iPhone. Unfortunately, the very first item on their list highlights one of the major flaws in Skype.
Written by J.A. Watson, Contributor

The "Independent" Skype Journal (aka The Skype Cheerleading Squad) has published a list of "advantages" of Skype over the 3G iPhone. Unfortunately, the very first item on their list highlights one of the major flaws in Skype. They list "Sharing your availability and mood message" - in fact, Skype has tremendous problems with accurately showing availability (or presence), to the point where in many cases it is basically random information with no real significance. So what is the point of faulting the 3G iPhone for not having something that Skype has proven incapable of doing themselves? In the same vein, the Skype "mood message" has been the source of security problems recently, was completely blocked for a while because of security concerns, and judging from complaints made in the Skype "Community", is still not working properly for many people.

The next point mentioned in the Skype Journal is "Queueing inbound friend-requests and retrying outbound requests". This leads right back to the availability problem above; Skype delivers "friend-requests" ONLY with both parties are online simultaneously, so when it is confused about online status, the delivery of these requests can be delayed by hours, days, months...

Apparently the Skype Cheerleaders think the presence and mood information are very important, since they go on to mention them again in a later point, this time for other contacts. Perhaps if they put such value on this "advantage", they might be able to convince Skype to actually get it working properly?

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