The new iPad is really an amazing communication tool. In addition to all the regulars; email, iMessage and FaceTime, the iPad also works with Skype. In fact, most of the great features we love about Skype on our PC or Mac work great on the iPad.

How to download Skype to Your iPad

Log in to the Skype App

After you create your account, you’re ready to log in to Skype on your iPad. To do so, follow these steps:

1. If you are not already in Skype, touch the Skype icon from your Home screen.
2. Type your Skype Name and Password.
3. Touch the Sign In button below the Password field.

Skype login screen

Finding and Adding Skype Contacts

Once you have logged into the Skype app, you will want to start communicating with people. To do so, you will have to find them and add then to your Skype contacts list:

1. If you are not already in Skype, Touch the Skype icon from your Home screen and log in, if asked.
2. Touch the Lists key along the left hand margin.
3. Touch one of the Contacts lists displayed, then touch the the “+” icon  at the top
4. Next, touch the Search Skype Directory and type someone’s name, email address or Skype Name. Touch Search to locate that person.
5. Once you see the person you want to add, touch his/her name.
6. Check the picture to make sure you have the right individual
7. Touch Add Contact at the top.
8. Adjust the invitation message appropriately.
9. Touch the Send button to send this person an invitation to become one of your Skype contacts.
10. Repeat the procedure to add more contacts.
11. When you are done, touch the Back key at the top or the Skype Directory key if you are not already in your Skype group.
12. Touch the appropriate Contacts group from the Lists screen to see all the newly added contacts.
13. Newly invited contacts will show up as Pending until they accept the invitation, then you will see them as a regular contact.

Search for Skype contacts

How to make Skype calls on your iPad

So far you have created your account and added your contacts. Now you are ready to finally make that first call with Skype on your iPad:

1. If you are not already in Skype, Touch the Skype icon from your Home screen and log in, if asked.
2. Touch the Lists button.
3. Touch a Contact Group to see your contacts.
4. Touch the contact name you wish to call
5. Touch the Video Call or Voice Call button. Sometimes, you don’t want to “show yourself” so a voice only call can be helpful.
6. You may see a Mobile or other phone button. Making any other kind of call requires that you pay for it with Skype Credits.

Touch the contact and then choose Video Call or Voice Call

Switching Cameras with Skype

Simply touch the Camera key along the bottom row of icons and choose whether you wish to display the Front Camera, Back Camera or No Camera on the screen.

If you choose No Camera, Skype will still work, but you will just have a voice call without any video image.

Choose Front Camera, Back Camera or No Camera to change the camera view

Using the My Info tab

From this section you can:

1. Change your Status
2. View your profile
3. Set your Call Forwarding options.

Touch the icon of yourself to see the My Info screen and options

How to use Skype call history on your iPad

Recent calls or chats are usually listed with the contacts icons along the left-hand margin of the Skype screen.

Below those icons is the History icon. Touch this to see your recent Skype history. Skype keeps a history of your Skype IM discussions and call logs which is very useful in order to retrieve potentially important information.

Touch the History icon to see your Skype history

How to buy Skype credits or a monthly subscription

Skype-to-Skype calls are free. However, if you want to call people on their landlines or mobile phones from Skype, then you will need to purchase Skype Credits or purchase a monthly subscription plan. This can be done on the Skype web site from the Safari app or from your Mac or PC.

How to IM with Skype chat

In addition to making phone calls, you can also chat via text with other Skype users from your iPad. Starting a chat is very similar to starting a call; follow these steps to do so:

1. If you are not already in Skype, touch the Skype icon from your Home screen and log in if asked.
2. Touch the Lists icon along the left-hand margin.
3. Touch All Contacts, iPad Contacts, Online Contacts, Skype Contacts or any other list to see your grouped contacts.
4. Touch the name of the contact with whom you want to IM.
5. Touch the IM button.
6. Type your chat text and press the Send button. Your IM will appear at the top of the screen.

Use Skype IM to quickly communicate with friends and family

Skype for iPad supports:

• Instant messaging
• Skype-to-Skype calling
• Calling phones and mobiles
• Receiving Skype calls and calls to Online Numbers
• Sharing screens
• Participating in conference calls
• Skype SMS
• Call forwarding
• Contact list filtering via groups
• Voicemail
• Bluetooth devices

Group video chat and sending files are not supported on Skype for iPad.

Are you using Skype of your iPad? How is it working for you? Let us know in this forum thread.

"I'm a big fan of Localmind because, unlike a lot of location-based apps, this one actually has a pretty solid userbase, even in my relatively tiny hometown."

Localmind 2.0 uses your iPhone's GPS to help you zero-in on local experts so you can chat with them live and ask them questions about the things that are important to you in your area. If you're familiar with Foursquare and Quora, it's almost a hybrid of those services where you can questions like, "are there any good bars around this restaurant you just suggested?"

Previously, LocalMind functioned like a helpful bulletin board where folks could leave questions for knowledgeable locals to answer. Now it's much more precise and meaningful. Questions in LocalMind 2.0 are fed into different categories, enabling others to easily find existing answers for nearby restaurants, pubs, shopping, travel, services, arts, and outdoors. Right now, my only qualm is that those filters are by default applied to your current location, as are any search results. I'd love to be able to do some advance scouting for Barcelona when I head over there for Mobile World Congress at the end of the month, but the only way you can hop between cities is to pinch-zoom out on the embedded Google Map a million times, then hunt around for your destination. Even then, one wayward tap, and you're zipped back to your current location. At least there's the browser companion which is more full-bodied.

Why would local experts want to help? Not simply out of the goodness of their hearts, of course. They get points. Once earning expert status at a particular venue, you earn karma points for answering questions, and as you hit certain milestones, you earn tiered titles. Think of it as Foursquare Mayorships, only with granularity and legitimacy.  If you don't want people harassing you with questions about your favourite haunts, you can always opt out of venue expertise. On top of Foursquare, Localmind can recognize Facebook Places check-ins, and also lets you share questions on Twitter.

I'm a big fan of Localmind because, unlike a lot of location-based apps that piggyback on Foursquare, this one actually has a pretty solid userbase, even in my relatively tiny hometown of Ottawa, Ontario. Generally, these sorts of apps have a decent amount of activity in the big cities, like New York and San Francisco, but those of us outside of gargantuan metropolises don't have much use for them. Beyond that, it finally feels like check-ins are actually worth something to someone now, and that I'm not just grasping for stupid virtual badges or stickers.

Free - Download Now

Chat for GTalk is a Google Talk client for the iPhone. The appearance is highly customizable and comes with three themes.

I'm not a big Google Talk user, but if I was, the UI and themes for this app would suck me in.

Details, screenshots, and video after the break.

[App Store link]

Chat for Gtalk offers a unique ability to completely change the appearance of chat window, contact list, fonts and background colors of the app. The first version of Chat for Gtalk introduces three fancy themes: Paper, Racing and Simple White.

• Chat with your GTalk / Google+ friends with the niftiest messenger on the App Store
• Give your friends the idea of what you’re up to with customizable status messages
• Cloud-based Chat History with easy access to any conversation you had earlier
• Send pictures on the go right from the app
• Push notifications will deliver incoming messages even if you are not in Chat for GTalk
• Integrated Web browser: open links from the conversations without leaving the app
• Supports both landscape and portrait orientations for your convenience
• Splendid graphic emoticons

Chat for GTalk is available on the iPhone for $0.99.

Have an app you'd love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

While there's no word yet on whether these new features will come to the existing Facebook for iPhone app, or the upcoming Facebook for iPad app, Facebook announced new ways to keep in touch with your friends today.

• You get a new chat design that shows you the friends you message the most.
• Easy to launch group chat
• Skype-powered video calling

The video calling competes with both Apple's FaceTime, and Google+'s Huddle, now on the web and perhaps coming soon in the Google+ iPhone app. Whether or not Facebook can get all this new junk into the mobile app's trunk is the question...

[Facebook]

Kachow. We did it TiPb nation. The great iPhone 4 release day of 2010 in is in the books. And what a release day it was -- lineups started the night before and extended around (and around) the block. No white iPhones were available, of course, and if you didn't have a reservation odds of even scoring a black one diminished rapidly as the day wore on.

There were lows -- yellow blotches that may or may not disappear with time, and an antenna problem if you hold it with your left hand on its left corner (which Apple now says not to do!). It made our old iPhone 3GS' look a tad dated. (Except after some people dropped one. Sigh.)

But oh, those highs -- gorgeous photos and video, FaceTime chats galore. There's a bunch of great iPhone 4-ready apps, including iMovie, and our own TiPb iPhone 4 Store is giving 10% pre-order accessories. We had iPhone 4 get ready guides, and we gave away two iPhone 4, and are getting ready to help give away another.

So now, once again rendered near exhausted by Apple’s iPhone release day, we turn the comments over to you.

Celebrate, commiserate, laugh, cry, regale us with your war stories and battle scars, or just mellow out and chat the night away. You’ve earned it.

Phew. What a crazy iPhone 4 pre-order day! The Apple Online store went up and came down -- again and again. No white iPhone 4 were available. Apple's new Apple Store app for iPhone came out, and promptly had iPhone pre-ordering removed from its functionality. AT&T managed to disrupt service to the extent people couldn't even complete the ordering process (or even got their account compromised). Not that the TiPb nation stopped trying.

Now as day turns to night, AT&T is sold out, other carriers out-to-lunch (since they're too busy to announce plans, they must be...), we found out international iPhone 4 could now be had unlocked, and we're once again rendered near exhausted by Apple's pre-event events, we turn the comments over to you.

Celebrate, commiserate, laugh, cry, regale us with your war stories and battle scars, or just mellow out and chat the night away. You've earned it.

Although it seems pretty clear that there's going to be a native chat client for the iPhone 2.0 that will support Google Talk (with background alerts to boot!), there may be those that have a religious injunction against installing applications. There may also be those who don't intend to upgrade because they don't want to mess around with losing either their unlocked or jailbroken status. Whatever your reason for not using a native app, Google's got ya covered with an all new interface for Google Talk, fully optimized for Mobile Safari.

It's cool and all, but the moment you navigate away (or close) from Safari your status is set to unavailable. On the bright side, though, if you're a Google-holic it integrates nicely with your contacts and otherwise works exactly how you'd expect a Google Talk Client (inside a web browser) to work.

Just point your iPhone to http://www.google.com/talk to give it a shot.

A lot of people have criticized the fact that there isn’t a Mobile iChat or any other Instant Messaging program on the iPhone. From a technological standpoint, there is absolutely no reason for it to be missing. Also, an IM client is a common offering among smartphones and feature phones alike. A IM program is often very useful to quickly stay in touch with your contacts and well, for ‘instant’ communication.

The Web App JiveTalk from Beejive, a company who makes the similar program and uber-popular JiveTalk for Blackberry, is the answer for those who need a chat program but aren’t ready to jailbreak their iPhones. How does it perform? Should you give it a go?

Read on for the rest of the review!

Design & Interface

Using Jivetalk is simple. Just point the Safari browser on your iPhone to iphone.beejive.com and the Jivetalk web app will be loaded.

The design of the program is sleek and very Apple-ish, the usage of brushed metal and chat bubbles creates an experience akin to iChat. It is extremely easy to flip through your buddy list and if in the case you can’t find it, the buddy search works as advertised. The whole interface is fluid and I have yet to come across a bug.

Even though it is currently in beta, Jivetalk is a very, very polished web app. The interface is clean and clear, simple buttons line the top of the screen such as Status, Log Off, Settings, Help, and a Buddy Search. The Settings are very customizable, almost to the point of iChat on your Mac. You can choose what theme to use, turn off bubble-chat, show offline buddies, and so on. The buddy list itself separates your buddies into your pre-determined groups and displays profiles/status of your buddies.

Usability

Jivetalk is able to use almost every chatting application ever created. Okay maybe that’s an overstatement, but AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk accounts can all be used. For this review, I kept it with AIM usage only. But note that multiple logins are also possible for those who have different accounts on different IM programs.

I found Jivetalk extremely easy to use, login is quick and painless—it even offers to remember your account and auto login on next arrival. Tapping a contact automatically opens a chat. And when chatting a new group is created for your ‘open chats’—this is a neat little feature that gives better accessibility to those whom you’re chatting with and cleans up a traditionally messy (on other phones) multiple chatting process.

There is also a tab-like interface in the chats. When having multiple conversations, in the upper right hand corner there are chat bubbles that correspond with each open chat. This allows for quick switching between chats.

You have the option to keep the keyboard up while chatting, which I chose to do, because having the keyboard slide in and out was dizzying, to say the least. Emoticons are also shown, so if you live to give your buddies smileys, feel free to on Jivetalk. There is a slight lag between pressing ‘Send’ on your iPhone and when it appears in your conversation (which is shown through a fainter font) which I will chalk up to data transmission.

Like any Web App however, especially those in Beta, Jivetalk is not without its limitations. Because of such limitations, it doesn’t always run in the background. I’ve had instances where I was able to stay logged in, but other times I was automatically logged off. It’s hard to fault Beejive for this limitation since it is Apple’s restrictions that causes this, but hopefully this can be solved..eventually.

Final Thoughts

Maybe when 2.0 rolls around (very soon!) there will be an AIM app or even iChat that can make for a better Insant Messaging experience, but I’m not so sure. Jivetalk for the iPhone is as good as any app can be, and its only limitation is the fact that it is a web app. Even on my jailbroken iPhone, I use Jivetalk rather than the other native IM options. It’s that good.

Hopefully the folks over at Beejive can release an official app for the iPhone because this is the best Instant Messaging Client currently available and it will only get better once it removes its web app status.

PROS

• Fluid Interface
• Handles Multiple Chats Well
• Groups, Profiles, Status, Emoticons—It’s iChat on your iPhone
• Customizable to your preference
• Great looking program

CONS

• It’s a web app
• Doesn’t always work in the background

Final Rating: 5/5