So a couple weeks back, Chris Breen and I were recording a Macworld Podcast episode — him on the iPhone, me on Skype — when we tried to patch in another iPhone caller using the phone’s easy-as-pie Merge shout feature. The only trouble is, in that case, it wasn’t easy-as-pie — despite repeated attempts, Chris couldn’t patch in another caller.

We figured it was considering I originated the shout, not iPhone-using Chris, and the wording in the iPhone User’s Guide PDF seemed to back up our supposition. OK, we decided, that’s a tip worth sharing with the populace. And so I wrote it up and sat back to bask in the glow of appreciation from an enlightened public.

It was only slightly less gratifying when the enlightened public responded by saying, “Uh… wrong, dummy.”

We heard from lots of folks who said they were able to use the Merge signal feature on the iPhone even when someone else initiated the signal, undercutting the usefulness of our little tip. All right soon after, we figured, possibly Skype was the culprit — perhaps there’s something about VoIP that befuddles the iPhone whenever it’s instance to put together a conference shout. That became our next working theory.

So that afternoon, Chris and I put Theory No. 2 to the experiment in which I placed a series of calls from different phones to him and he tried to patch in another caller.

In pop quiz

one, I called him from my office phone. He put me on hold to dial in Dan Frakes. Everything went according to plan. So that worked out.

In analysis two, I called Chris from my (non-iPhone) mobile phone; again, Chris successfully added Dan Frakes to the shout. So chalk up another Merge signal success.

Now experiment three, where our Skype-as-the-fly-in-the-ointment theory would be proven unmistaken. I launched Skype, called Chris, and waited as he tried (no doubt in vain) to add Dan to the shout. Only that day, it worked as advertised — there were three Macworld editors on the signal, now puzzled as hell as to why the same thing didn’t work just a week-and-a-half ago.

Noodling it by, I can only conjure up three explanations:

1. Operator error the first duration around
2. The vagaries of Net telephony
3. Some perfectly fair rationale I’m just not bright decent to figure out

I’m all but convinced we can rule out Possibility No. 1 — I’ve certainly been known to bungle things, but it was Chris doing the call-merging when we struck out a week-and-a-half ago, and he’s a pretty dependable fellow. I’d need more instances of erratic behavior before I subscribed to Possibility No. 2. Which leaves us with No. 3 — I have no earthly clue. whether you’ve got an view, I’d be happy to build out it.

Original post by Philip Michaels

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