New Version Of Skype

posted on 2004-10-25 at 22:36:10 by Joel Ross

I use Skype for work quite a bit, and try to stay on top of the newest releases. The software is fairly reliable (I have a very weird error - it only happens after I enable and disable a second monitor AFTER I've suspended my laptop. I get range check error), and the idea that the latest version exposes an API is intriguing. What can you do with it? What can't you do with it? Could I write a completely different UI for it? Could I build a hard phone around it, and use that for an IP Phone? Can I build IM into my own software?

Anyway, the site offers very limited documentation about what the API is - the change log says there's an API, and that's about it! Well, at least that I found initially. Doing a search on Google revealed quite a bit more. There's a document out there that's part of the NDA, but is easily discovered.

It looks like you can do quite a bit. The first is part of how a USB phone can use the API. The second is what third party software can do. And it looks like you can place calls, IM, view a user profile, and probably some more stuff. You can even have two apps use the API at the same time.

This could get interesting. Documentation for the API is expected to be released in November, and some companies are quietly working on easy to use API wrappers to allow Skype to be used through Java and web apps.

Categories: General