This is true only for Skype to Skype connections. Calls that have to reach The PSTN[1] need to be routed through telephony servers somehow, exposing the possibility to cause some stress on Skype's servers as FrojoS mentions.
I haven't used Über, but the idea is exactly the same and the apps are very much alike. I live in Madrid, which is one of the cities where Cabify operates. I've used their service a couple of times and I can only recommend it. Looks like a good place to work and Mark Villa Camp, the guy mentioned in the article is a well known name in the Spanish tech scene.
Is Cabify a copycat? Whatever, is a well executed idea and I wish they succeed.
That is a (mis)perception most people have (myself included) regarding career development. Professionals follow the path of the higher salary.
For me, the path can be something like this:
South America < PIGS < France/Germany/UK < Rest of The USA < SV/NYC
That being said, there's also people who give more value to quality of life. The place that work for in Spain have several people from The US, Sweden and UK, even though they could be making more money back in their countries.
Seems to be already removed, at least that's what I see from Europe with a U.S. account.
Remember that whatever amount of money is this publisher making, Apple is taking a 30%. Maybe they don't put too much effort on their side on purpose, just saying.
Apple breaks even on app sales, and has done so for years. The 30% of paid apps is used for developing the Xcode software and SDK, evaluating app submissions, advertising, affiliate programs, payment processing, storage and bandwidth.
Also remember, Apple pays the storage and bandwidth for all the free apps, which devs can submit for free.
This looks very promising, but are there any examples of real applications written with RubyMotion and submitted to the AppStore? Everything I see is just stand-alone examples, but can all the pieces be glued together and turn into a functional app?
And second, maybe this is a dumb question, but is there any possibility that Apple blocks apps submitted using third party tools like this?
There are apps written in MacRuby (RubyMotion's desktop sibling) in the Mac App Store, and there are apps written in other alternative languages in the iOS App Store, so it's hard to see what the problem would be. The RubyMotion FAQ agrees with this assessment.
Apple doesn't care how you write your apps (well, they'd probably prefer you used their tools), and they've come out and publicly stated they have no problem with things like RubyMotion, Corona, Adobe Air to ObjC conversion, etc.
They own the DUCK.CO domain, but use it as a community forum. I think they should use that one as a shortcut to their main product, but probably they don't want to cause confusion.
The funny thing is that the registrant of DUCK.COM appears to be Google when you do a whois lookup:
I remember reading about it on TNW that it came from an acquisition. While most of the domain names Google owns don't redirect to google.com, this one is an exception (you'd wonder how it relates to search in any way). Google wants some free traffic from its little enemy?
Also, according to Wikipedia[1] Coca Sek, a coca leaves based soda is still sold in Colombia, even though is was removed from super markets shelves.
I was living in Colombia when it was launched. It had a big media coverage, so I tried it once just out of curiosity. It tasted really really bad and I didn't notice any side effects after managing to drink just half bottle.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_switched_telephone_netwo...