Skype Ruined My iPhone

That is, of course, an exaggeration, but there’s a story to be told here.

Just over three years ago, I bought a then-new iPhone 3G (side note: here in Canada, we don’t have 2-year contracts, only 3-year contracts.  It sucks).  Since then, through two OS upgrades (from iOS2 to the current iOS4.2) it has only become better and more useful — and similarly with most apps as they are upgraded.

Then, in late 2008, I travelled to Australia for a few weeks, and wanted to use my iPhone for local calls and tethered 3G data for my laptop and making Skype calls back home.  At the time, it was possible to jailbreak the iPhone 3G, but there was no software unlock available.  My solution was to purchase a $20 shim which you insert with the SIM card to fool the carrier into thinking the phone is unlocked — it worked wonderfully with a 3 Australia prepaid “cap” SIM.

Unfortunately, 3G tethering and Skype-over-3G were both features that would not be “officially” possible for another two years with the release of iOS4.  But it was possible to jailbreak the iPhone and, with some unauthorized and less-than-perfect hacks, add this functionality.  To wit, this kind of example has been one of the strongest arguments for jailbreaking in the history of the iPhone: to add new functionality that is available on other (e.g. Android) devices which Apple has yet to implement.

(In fact, Apple has a solid track record of “implementing” features from the jailbreak community, even going to far as hiring developers from among them.)

My hack worked beautifully.  I have great memories of talking to my family on my iPhone while strolling through the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.  This might seem unremarkable now, but at the time it was widely considered impossible; except, of course, that it wasn’t.

But something bizarre has happened since then: while iOS has steadily improved with each release, the Skype app has gotten steadily worse.  Much, much worse.  I’m not just talking about the UI becoming unnavigable, which it has, but simply the ability to have passable audio quality.  It has diminished to the point that it is effectively unusable for making local calls from my wireless network at home.

But I know for a fact that my phone can run Skype over 3G without problems — I did it almost three years ago on the other side of the world.

And of course, you can’t downgrade.

Because certainly no developer would release a newer version that is worse than the older one.  That would be crazy, right?  Thanks to the App Store model, once you upgrade an app, you’re stuck with it.  So, once again, I had to turn to jailbreaking as a solution to my problem.  You see, there does exist an application — a very contentious application, even among jailbreakers — that allows you to install App Store apps without paying for them.  But in my case, it has a handy side feature: it also provides copies of older versions of apps that are long gone from the App Store.

As it turns out, I’m heading back to Australia again this year, and once again, I’d like to be able to call home using some prepaid 3G data.  But this time, it’ll be different: my iPhone is legitimately carrier-unlocked and I can do native iOS4 tethering.  The only thing that hasn’t changed is that I’ll be running the same old version of  Skype that I was in 2008.  Because guess what: unlike the latest version, it works just fine.

Good thing I’m able to break the rules to do something I did three years ago.

Addendum: I’m not sure who to blame for this frustration.  Certainly Skype for earning their reputation of producing the most terrible software possible, and then somehow being able to move backwards with it.  But I think Apple should consider making old versions of apps available on the App Store for the innumerable edge-cases like this; it’s pretty low-risk on their part.  Of course, the argument could be made that this would decrease incentive to buy new iPhones, but in places like Canada (and thanks to the corrupt CRTC), that’s not an option for many of us.

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