Skype 2.2 adds Smartphone support, new features!

Have a Smartphone Edition Windows Mobile device and feel left out of the Skype party? Well, get your dancin' shoes on because your Skype hosts have just invited your device to join in! Skype just released the beta of Skype for Windows Mobile 2.2 and the P2P voice client now supports Smartphone Edition devices, not just Pocket PC Phone Edition.

Features include:

NEW: Support for Windows Mobile smartphones and more Pocket PC devices;
NEW: Enhanced today/home screen: presence status, event notification (missed calls, new chat messages and voicemails);
NEW: Proxy support: Supports regular HTTP or HTTPS proxies, and authenticating HTTPS/SSL and SOCKS5 proxies
* Skype calling features: Free Skype-to-Skype calls, support for SkypeOut, SkypeIn™, voicemail and call forwarding;
* User-friendly look and feel: As easy and familiar as using Skype on a computer;
* One-click Skype access: A Skype icon on the home screen lets users view and call contacts easily;
* Multi-person chat: Users can have multichat sessions using animated emoticons. When mobile users are offline, chat messages will automatically update the next time user logs in;
* Enhanced contact list: Users can see their contacts avatars and mood messages;
* Profile personalization: Users can take a picture with the camera on their mobile device and immediately update their profile.

There are more photos of enhancements and informational screens after the jump courtesy of Dave Zatz, who just installed the beta on his PPC-6700 and tipped us off about the Skype forum post. If you've got a Motorola Q, Cingular BlackJack, T-Mobile Dash or other Smartphone Edition device, give the download a whirl for some free VoIP and IM from Skype! If there was one "wish list" item I could add to the next version of the mobile client it would be: allow usage of the standard earpiece speaker as opposed to forcing all audio through the external speaker. Maybe next time?

Comments

[Adrian Oliver]

For your information, I have had the previous version V2.1.0.65 running on my iMate SP5m for some time now.

To "install" it, all I did was copy the skype.exe from my Dell X50v onto my iMate SP5m, including the "application data\skype" folder.

It worked okay - going to the about screen and some of the menus was fun - no way back to the main menu.

However audio worked well (via WIFI - except audio came through speakers and not earphone speaker - wrong side of device...), and texting very well, including via WIFI and GPRS.

Thanks for the pointer to the new version!

Adrian
(Chiang Mai, Thailand)

[Tan Tran]

Yes, it works well on my T-Mobile SDA. The only gotcha is that I must turn on speakerphone otherwise, the other party will hear a lot of echo when using a headset.

[Jerry]

Very nice!! I've been waiting on this for a while now!

[Anon]

Where's the BlackBerry support?!