Yay! Now you will be able to make those free skype to skype calls via guess what? Your iPhone with Skype For iPhone! Like we mentioned in our previous post you will have to be on a Wi-Fi connection to call people via this awesome application. But you will be able to sign in via EDGE, 3G or WiFi to instant message with Skype. Of course, if your iPhone is jailbroken you will have the ability to trick the iPhone and make it think it’s on a WiFi connection when it’s really not – Clever iPhone Hacks

Skype for iPhone is free and you can download it here [iTunes Link]

Thanks for the tip, Paul!

It’s official, Skype for iPhone will be made available on Tuesday. While many other apps such as Fring support Skype but with not so good quality. Often many Apps that support skype are echo-infected. The official Skype for iPhone app will only support WiFi – no EDGE or 3G support (You could always get it to work over EDGE or 3G with some iPhone Hacks)

Skype for iPhone also supports calls to SkypeOut contacts in addition to many of the other features you’ve used from the desktop client. iPod touch owners will require earphones with an embedded mic to talk.

Skype for iPhone will be free and will be available sometime Tuesday! Stay tuned!

Thanks for the tip Chunk!

Featuring always-on connectivity and the ability to send IM and picture messages via Google Talk, MSM, AIM, Yahoo, and ICQ Agile Messenger is probably one of thee best and most reliable Instant Messaging clients available on the AppStore. Agile Messenger is a good looking, very stable and reliable IM client that every iPhone user should consider buying.

Agile Messenger is the most feature rich and user friendly all-in-one MSN®, AIM®, Yahoo!®, ICQ® & GoogleTalk® instant messaging client for your mobile phone!

Features:

• Always-on connectivity keeps your IM accounts online while you use other iPhone apps.
• IM to Email forwarding to notify you of incoming IM messages.
• Voice and Picture Messaging enable you to send instant voice and picture messages to any IM contact

Agile Messenger for iPhone is $9.99 USD on the AppStore – Buy it here [iTunes Link]

- source: agilemobile.com

In the process of developing InstallerApp, which we told you about not too long ago, RipDev was investigating the technology behind Cydia. Basically, Cydia is a front-end to two open source techs – APT and DPKG. DPKG is a system that installs and removes specially prepared packages. APT allows these files to be organized in network repositories to be indexed and downloaded.

From RipDev:

Due to the highly unoptimal build of DPKG (as Jay Freeman, the author of Cydia, admits it in his article about Cydia) we had to compile DPKG and the tools needed from scratch. As a result, the same set of tools take only a little over than 1 megabyte as opposed to 32 installed by Cydia.
While testing Cydia support for InstallerApp, we of course had to use Jay’s creation a lot. And unfortunately it felt slow, and overloaded. We thought, well, why not make our own front-end to DPKG? It would be compatible with Cydia, but be focused on speed, elegance and be very, very thin. So one of our programmers sat down and made up in a week a new alternative installer that we are proud to reveal to you today, named Icy.

RipDev claims Icy is simple and they plan to keep it that way.

• It will only refresh repositories when you tell it to
• will not scroll pages of cool looking terminal text when installing or removing a package. Instead, it presents the installation process in a friendly and cool manner
• enhanced with crisp black and white interface featuring icons by quite famous artist Max Rudberg

Icy uses the same DPKG technology that Cydia uses but without the APT tech that handles the downloading of repository indeces and packages. Instead, RipDev decided to use a combination of libcurland sqlite for that.
Hungry for faster repository refreshes? Well, Icy will only download headers when refreshing repos so it won’t download again the indeces that were not changed – this saves on your traffic and makes the refreshes faster. It will pick up existing Cydia repositories and also will allow you to add more through its Add Source interface.

RipDev also added landscape support, awesome! I tip my hat at RipDev for adding landscape seeing as it’s so useful!
For those who are freaked out thinking you’ll have to take out your wallet for this, calm down, Icy will always remain free!

RipDev also mentions Installer 5 will be announced soon

-Click More to see Images of Icy-
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Yay! That’s right! Sling Media’s SingPlayer Mobile has been submitted to Apple for approval. And it should be available for download any time soon!

From Sing Media’s Website:

We’re been working hard to bring the SlingPlayer Mobile experience to the iPhone and iPod Touch. We’ve submitted the first release of our application to the iPhone App Store. In the mean time, take a sneak peek!

Sling Media demoed SlingPlayer Mobile For iPhone at Macworld in January. And Sling Media promised they were submitting this for approval in March and here we are, it’s March and It’s been submitted.

- source: slingmedia.com

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple Retail stores are now selling the iPhone 3G with no contract commitment! Awesome, right? Well, Awesome for those who can afford a $599 8GB model and $699 16GB model. These prices are extremely steep, and probably neither AT&T or Apple will see these selling like IHOP Pancakes.

Surprisingly, Apple’s offer comes with less restrictions than AT&T’s offer. Apple isn’t limiting the sales to one per customer like AT&T is and isn’t requiring that purchasers be current AT&T customers.

While the phones are still technically locked to AT&T service, it is possible (but not supported) to unlock the phones for use with other mobile service providers. In the US, that is largely limited to T-Moble and Metro PCS, although both GSM providers do not support the 3G network the iPhone 3G needs to connect at faster than EDGE speeds.

So, there you go, If you got $600 or $700 to throw down for a commitment free iPhone 3G this is your best bet and then hack it with some awesome iPhone 3G Hacks!

Perhaps one of the best instant messaging clients in the AppStore and perhaps one of the most expensive instant messaging clients in the AppStore just released a nice update to BeejiveIM — Support for custom background images and support for Facebook IM. Along with those nice implementations they have taken anti-piracy measures so the application isn’t wildly cracked and distributed illegally.

The new version of BeejiveIM includes:

• Support for Facebook IM, including the ability to login from multiple locations, update your buddy picture and update your Facebook status.
• Wallpaper selection inside the application. Ability to select your own wallpaper.
• Performance enhancements.
• Small UI enhancements.

The good folks of Beejive have told MobileCrunch:

We have recently implemented new anti-piracy measures in BeejiveIM for iPhone. We have tried to keep our approach fun with an error message and a video. But we hope our message is clear: please respect the work of developers.

If you happen to pirate BeejiveIM then the following screenshot may look familiar to you:

You’ll see that error and be taken to a Office Space YouTube video.

If you did pirate BeejiveIM, then buy a legit copy. It’s very expensive for a IM client but its worth every cent if you’re a heavy IM user.

- source: mobilecrunch.com

You may remember us telling you about InstallerApp a while ago, yeah? Well, RipDev finally released InstallerApp version 1.0 – In case you don’t know, InstallerApp is an application by RipDev (Developer of Installer.app) InstallerApp allows you to install unofficial 3rd party application to your iPhone via your desktop over a USB cable. Absolutely perfect for the people without a Wi-Fi connection.

InstallerApp can install software in two flavors — when you initially connect an iPhone, it will ask you to install some required components (that is mostly the Installer itself and its daemon, an application that will respond to InstallerApp requests on the USB). This can be installed on any iPhone, and if it was not jailbroken before, then it will not even open the system disk for writing — this to guarantee the security and integrity of your system.

If you wish to install software that uses APT/DPKG (probably most known on the iPhone world after the graphical front-end Cydia), then the system partition will have to be open for writing (most dpkg packages won’t work otherwise) — and yes, InstallerApp can do that too by downloading a special “ramdisk” that contains the open source components (such as dpkg, and some essential tools) and “pushing it” to the iPhone. We have rebuilt the components on our own as the ones packaged with other solutions were not built with all diligence and patience as they should have been.

InstallerApp is $7 and works for up to 3 devices. If you got more than 3 then you can buy more than one license!

- source: ripdev.org

A developer has managed to hack his way into getting USB tethering to work on the recently release iPhone 3.0 beta – He claims he was “hacking around” with some carrier bundle files and iPhone 3.0 and somehow managed to activate the tethering preferences, that’s some epic iPhone Hacks! Not only is that epic but he was successful on tethering his iPhone 3G to his laptop! If you don’t know what tethering is, it’s a feature that allows you to share your iPhone’s internet connection with your laptop, but has not been allowed up until iPhone 3.0

Based on the images above, it appears you’ll not only have the options for USB Tethering but also bluetooth! Pretty awesome, eh? Sadly, the developer doesn’t know what he did exactly to enable this feature. Very sad, indeed. Apple had admitted tethering capabilities were built in into the iPhone 3.0 firmware but had not yet coordinated with mobile carriers. Very clever iPhone 3G Hacks and developer!

- source: macrumors.com

AT&T has confirmed that contract-free iPhone 3Gs will be coming to the market next thursday! That’s awesome knews for those who can’t afford to be tied down to a contract just to get an iPhone!

Each phone will cost $400 more than their subsidized versions at $599 for the 8GB and $699 for the 16GB. The phones will still remain locked to AT&T and will require the standard iPhone data plan.

Stay tuned!