Skyphone?

Those precious foolhardy few who activated their iPhones by arcane means and are using them as expensive iPods outside the United States might actually, after a fashion, get to use them as kinda-sorta phones after all.

A hack workaround has been engineered to let these rogue iPhones work with Skype, the wonderful VOIP app that lets you make free internet-based calls. The catch is, it’s a klunky, complicated, difficult and not-for-the-fainthearted little hack which requires, among other things, broadband, the Opera browser, an Ajax app called SoonR Talk, SkypeOut credits and, of all things, a PC (this time it’s the Mac users who are SOL). And for all that, if you actually get to do it, it’s about one of the kludgiest workarounds I’ve seen in a long time.

I’m not going to repeat the method here because it’s a bit long and convoluted (and mostly because it’s beyond my powers to comprehend), so just please head on to Tom Keating’s blog at TMC Labs where it was first explained, for the gory details.

Or, alternatively, you could just hold off until the iPhone officially comes to your neck of the woods in a few months.

Geez. The things geeks are willing to go through.