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My octogenarian mum is on her second iPad now, a 2012 iPad 3, the first Retina model of iPad. It’s a decent device, quite high-spec, fast and reliable. It has a lovely sharp 1536×2048 display, a gig of RAM, excellent battery life even for a second-hand device, Siri, the works. It runs iOS 9, version 9.3.5 to be precise.
This is the same version as its predecessor, a much slower non-Retina (768×1024) 2011 iPad 2 with 512 MB of RAM. The iPad 3 feels much quicker although both have dual-core 1GHz ARM CPUs.
But Microsoft, in its finite wisdom, is rewriting Skype – rumour has it as a Javascript applet – and emasculating the desktop versions so they match the mobile versions closer. The old versions are being discontinued, servers turned off, and the newer one’s proprietary protocols are incompatible with the old. Recent versions of Windows 10 stealthily replace the standalone desktop Skype app with a “modern” Skype app from the Windows Store, but it does leave the desktop app installed. You can remove the modern version. One way to tell the difference is that the classic version shows different status icons depending on whether you’re connected, logged in, etc. The modern one doesn’t, just a blue Skype logo.
Old versions of Skype (from before version 8) can’t connect any more… and the new versions only run on iOS 10 or above.
Tablet sales are slackening off. Perhaps such moves are intentional as a way to drive sales of newer models, when the old devices are still perfectly functional.
But there is an odd little wrinkle. The iPhone version of Skype 8 works on iOS 9, but the tablet version doesn’t. And the iPad is really just a big iPhone and it can run iPhone apps – in the early days of the iPad, when there were few iPad-native apps, so iPad owners ran iPhone apps, which appeared huge with big chunky controls. But they worked.
If you coax the iPhone version of Skype onto your out-of-support iPad, you will still be able to connect, and both make and receive calls and messages.
I couldn’t find any instructions online. There are a couple of wordless, agonizingly slow Youtube videos showing how to do it – if you read French.
So I thought I’d describe how I did it.
The basic procedure is that we will use a specific old version of iTunes on Windows to add Skype for iPhone to the Apple account used on the iPad, and then use the App Store on the iPad itself to install this from our web account.
What you will need:
Just to make this harder, in version 12.7, Apple removed iTunes’ ability to install and manage apps on iOS devices in a recent version. This method won’t work with any current version of iTunes. So you’ll need to install a special, older version -- iTunes 12.6.3. If you already have a current version of iTunes installed, you’ll need to remove it and install the last version with the App Store functionality. Old versions of iTunes can’t open the libraries of newer versions. That means you’ll lose access to your iTunes library.
So make sure you have a backup, export your music/photos/videos and any other content to somewhere else and make sure you have a safe copy.
Then download iTunes from here: http://osxdaily.com/2017/10/09/get-itunes-12-6-3-with-app-store/
The other option is to make a special new Windows user account, just for this process. You’ll still need to downgrade iTunes, at least temporarily, but if you work in a dedicated one-shot user account, the new account won’t have access to your library, so you won’t lose it.
If you don’t have anything in your iTunes library, or you don’t normally use iTunes at all – like my mother, or indeed me, as I sync my iPhone to my iMac – then the easiest way to proceed is to erase your entire iTunes library and config files.
The procedure is as follows:
That is about it. It should install the iPhone version of Skype onto your iPad 2 or 3. You will see a small circle in the bottom right corner of the screen. This lets you change the magnification: normally, the app is doubled to fill most of the screen, and it says “1×” in the circle. Tap it to turn off the scaling, and the app will shrink down to phone size and the circle will say “2×” to return to double size.
For me, it worked and I could make and receive calls. However, I could not send video, only receive it.
Sadly if you use large text – my mum’s eyesight is failing – the phone app is almost unusable due to the text size, so we have sold on the iPad and bought a newer model, a fifth generation model. Now she is struggling with iOS 12 instead, which is a major step up in complexity from iOS 9. If you are attempting to do this for a technophobe or an elderly relative, you might consider switching to Facetime, Google Hangouts, or something else, as newer iPads are significantly less easy to use.
This is the same version as its predecessor, a much slower non-Retina (768×1024) 2011 iPad 2 with 512 MB of RAM. The iPad 3 feels much quicker although both have dual-core 1GHz ARM CPUs.
But Microsoft, in its finite wisdom, is rewriting Skype – rumour has it as a Javascript applet – and emasculating the desktop versions so they match the mobile versions closer. The old versions are being discontinued, servers turned off, and the newer one’s proprietary protocols are incompatible with the old. Recent versions of Windows 10 stealthily replace the standalone desktop Skype app with a “modern” Skype app from the Windows Store, but it does leave the desktop app installed. You can remove the modern version. One way to tell the difference is that the classic version shows different status icons depending on whether you’re connected, logged in, etc. The modern one doesn’t, just a blue Skype logo.
Old versions of Skype (from before version 8) can’t connect any more… and the new versions only run on iOS 10 or above.
Tablet sales are slackening off. Perhaps such moves are intentional as a way to drive sales of newer models, when the old devices are still perfectly functional.
But there is an odd little wrinkle. The iPhone version of Skype 8 works on iOS 9, but the tablet version doesn’t. And the iPad is really just a big iPhone and it can run iPhone apps – in the early days of the iPad, when there were few iPad-native apps, so iPad owners ran iPhone apps, which appeared huge with big chunky controls. But they worked.
If you coax the iPhone version of Skype onto your out-of-support iPad, you will still be able to connect, and both make and receive calls and messages.
I couldn’t find any instructions online. There are a couple of wordless, agonizingly slow Youtube videos showing how to do it – if you read French.
So I thought I’d describe how I did it.
The basic procedure is that we will use a specific old version of iTunes on Windows to add Skype for iPhone to the Apple account used on the iPad, and then use the App Store on the iPad itself to install this from our web account.
What you will need:
- an iPad that can’t run anything newer than iOS 9
- a working Apple ID
- a Windows PC on which you can install an old version of iTunes
- Ideally one which didn’t have iTunes on it already
- a cable to connect them
Just to make this harder, in version 12.7, Apple removed iTunes’ ability to install and manage apps on iOS devices in a recent version. This method won’t work with any current version of iTunes. So you’ll need to install a special, older version -- iTunes 12.6.3. If you already have a current version of iTunes installed, you’ll need to remove it and install the last version with the App Store functionality. Old versions of iTunes can’t open the libraries of newer versions. That means you’ll lose access to your iTunes library.
So make sure you have a backup, export your music/photos/videos and any other content to somewhere else and make sure you have a safe copy.
Then download iTunes from here: http://osxdaily.com/2017/10/09/get-itunes-12-6-3-with-app-store/
The other option is to make a special new Windows user account, just for this process. You’ll still need to downgrade iTunes, at least temporarily, but if you work in a dedicated one-shot user account, the new account won’t have access to your library, so you won’t lose it.
If you don’t have anything in your iTunes library, or you don’t normally use iTunes at all – like my mother, or indeed me, as I sync my iPhone to my iMac – then the easiest way to proceed is to erase your entire iTunes library and config files.
The procedure is as follows:
- Install the last version of iTunes with the App Store.
- Log in to the same Apple ID as the as used on the iPad.
- In iTunes, find Skype for iPhone.
- Ask to install it on your device. It’s free, so no payment method is required.
- Now, Skype for iPhone is on the inventory of your Apple ID.
(At this point, you can connect the iPad and try to sync it. It won’t install Skype for you, but you can try.) - Now, eject your iPad using the button next to its icon in iTunes. After that, you’re done with the PC.
- Now switch over to the iPad and open the Apple Store.
- Go to the “Purchased Apps” tab.
- Note: you might need to switch views. There is a choice of “iPad apps” and “iPhone apps”. Since we’re looking for Skype for iPhone, it should appear under iPhone apps, not under iPad apps.
- If you can’t see it, you can also search for “Skype for iPhone” – capitals don’t matter, but the exact phrase will help.
- When you find it, you should see a little cloud logo next to it. That means it’s on your account, but not on this iPad.
- Tap the “install” button.
- The App Store should tell you that the latest version will not run on your device – it needs iOS 10 or newer, which is why we are here. Crucially, though, it should offer to install the latest version which will work on your device. Say yes to this.
That is about it. It should install the iPhone version of Skype onto your iPad 2 or 3. You will see a small circle in the bottom right corner of the screen. This lets you change the magnification: normally, the app is doubled to fill most of the screen, and it says “1×” in the circle. Tap it to turn off the scaling, and the app will shrink down to phone size and the circle will say “2×” to return to double size.
For me, it worked and I could make and receive calls. However, I could not send video, only receive it.
Sadly if you use large text – my mum’s eyesight is failing – the phone app is almost unusable due to the text size, so we have sold on the iPad and bought a newer model, a fifth generation model. Now she is struggling with iOS 12 instead, which is a major step up in complexity from iOS 9. If you are attempting to do this for a technophobe or an elderly relative, you might consider switching to Facetime, Google Hangouts, or something else, as newer iPads are significantly less easy to use.
