Talk to Skype from your Iphone

VOIP SOFTWARE specialist, Fring, has released a beta version of its Fring client for the Apple Iphone. This will enable Iphone owners to talk to their mates on a wide range of VoIP services via its Wi-fi connection.

The list includes MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo and AIM as well as Skype. There's only one catch. The Iphone itself needs to be jailbroken or 'opened' as Fring prefers to term it.

Jailbreaking can be performed in software using a variety of applications including one from Ziphone. Basically this process enables third party apps to be loaded onto the handset without Apple's official approval.

So, in effect, you have to know what you're doing with jailbreaking and the INQ wouldn't recommend it for the faint hearted.

As the result of this release – built in conjunction with Holon Institute of Technology labs in Israel – Fring reckons it has the world's first mobile VoIP app for the Iphone.

The good news is that Fring is free and even better still when you first login to a service using Fring you should be able to download all your existing 'buddy list' from whichever VoIP service you happen to prefer.

Fring is being true to the open source ethic and says that feedback from enthusiasts will help the "R&D process of the full release version, due for launch later this year [2008]."

In effect, if you load this app you'll be able to talk for free via Wi-fi to millions of mainly PC based users all over the world. Such a prospect isn't exactly going to please the likes of O2 which offers the Iphone exclusively in the UK. µ