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After Making Skype Convoluted and Difficult To Use, Microsoft is Now Rolling Out Features To Restore Simplicity (thurrott.com)
From a report: Microsoft just announced a number of changes the company is rolling out to restore Skype's simplicity and familiarity. When the company introduced the modern Skype, it introduced radical changes that turned the app into an actual, modern app. But of course, that didn't really work too well with some of Skype's classic users. Although Microsoft has made numerous changes to the modern Skype to work better for all users, there were still a bunch of things in the app that no one really needed. And one of that was Highlights -- it was a complete clone of Snapchat where you could post pictures/videos that last for a limited time. Unlike other Snapchat clones like Instagram Stories, no one actually used Skype Highlights. [...] The navigation has been drastically improved, now only consisting of Chats, Calls, and Contacts -- the three core parts of Skype. Along with Highlights, Microsoft's also removed the Capture button which opened the Skype camera -- another useless feature that was already accessible from within chats.
This is honestly Microsoft's biggest UI problem globally with all of their products. And hopefully I can say without getting blasted is why Apple killed the Phone and Tablet markets and Microsoft lost them.
Microsoft needs to expose a very simplistic UI to users, and let them click a "advanced mode" type of button to expose all the nonsense 99% of the users will never use. Fuck. Apple should do the same thing.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
As soon as Microsoft announced they were buying Skype, I knew it would turn into a steaming pile of shit, and I was right. They've ruined it, utterly ruined it.
Now Skype takes forever to load, doesn't show updates, doesn't alert on background communication events, and sometimes it just wants to reinstall over and over and over and over and over.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
1. Restore all the platforms they killed off after acquiring it. It was the defacto standard because it was everywhere. (Linux, tvs, etc)
2. Simplify the client
3. improve call quality. It's absolute garbage at work.
4. Lower bandwidth requirements by using some decent codecs.
5. Make screen sharing actually work on macs. You shouldn't have to reshare 3 times for everyone to see the damn picture.
6. Don't make skype for business a crappy Lync variant and restore the original skype client.
I used to use Skype (personal) and at one of my clients occasionally have to use the "business" app.
Both are fairly horrible, and voice quality can be very variable, even on MegaCorp's private network.
My extended family and friend network abandoned Skype years ago, with most now using WhatsApp, which works really well.
So, fiddle around with the UI if you like MS, but you should fix the call quality first
Shortly after MS bought ad fucked up Skype, literally everyone I knew moved on. Only took a few months. Does anyone recall for a while they had device incompatible versions, too? Oh youâ(TM)re on Mac and Iâ(TM)m on Android so we cant talk anymore! How completely fucking stupid did someone have to be to allow that version to ship? And MS official position on their message boards was some crap about how it was better.
It is too damned late. Skype is deader than FreeBSD or desktop Linux.
I'm not loved enough for people to care if they see me. Texts and calls are my fate. I know, you don't have to say it. I'm getting the razor blade out of the medicine cabinet right now.
Just bring back the classic Skype UI, and take old Yeller (Skype for Business) out back and shoot it. Yes, I am still running 7.38.0.101 (classic UI, everything still works), but who knows how long that will remain supported?
How many times a year does your computer freeze and need to be power-cycled, versus your brain doing the same.
Do people still use it? *shrugs*
The new Skype UI appears to remove the no-video call option, so either make sure you and your contact both have great internet access, or disable your camera in the Device Manager. Not a big deal, but seems like an odd option to cull.
I have to power cycle my brain after the 10th beer pretty regularly. Are you comparing beer to Microsoft? BLASPHEMY!
New Skype removed many of the features of classic Skype (at least on Linux it sure did), but there were still a few features left. Now we're going to remove the rest of the features, and just for fun we're going to call the removal of features a feature!
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Microsoft's Skype for business is a buggy pile. It replaced Microsoft's Lync at my firm, which was a buggy pile.
Skype for business is a much buggier pile. I would like to have Lync back, even though I hated it.
By union the smallest states thrive. By discord the greatest are destroyed.
Small communities grow great through harmony, great ones fall to pieces through discord.
Salust circa 60 BC
It really ticked-off the Emperor of China when they didn't adapt their new version to work with the Chinese version on skype-tom.com - it doesn't mean they have stopped surveillance though. Microsoft is fully cooperative...
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
If you're always running in circles only looking forwards it seems like you're making consistent progress, but you're not.
MS couldn't UI their way out of a wet paper bag.
> and let them click a "advanced mode"
"Advanced mode" is always UI speak for "The thing you actually want to do". Let's take the browser I'm typing in for example. The only things I ever want to do in browser settings is (A) Mess with the proxy settings (B) Mess with the certificates and (C) Recover a stored password. Things I don't want to do include everything on the basic settings page of chrome. Everything I might want to do is behind the well obscured "advanced" button.
It's not just chrome. It's everything on Windows and Macs. Thunderbird, firefox, word, excel, skype etc. etc.
At least I have Linux and it's all in a dotfile in my home directory or etc.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
You set stuff up. You are not the end user. Who will use that very browser you just set up 1,000 times more than you ever will.
You don't matter. Your stuff should be doable, and that is about it.
Ayup. Skype doesn't work in the Middle East and many other countries around the world and they don't even try to fix it.
Why would anyone keep it installed or bother to try to use it if it doesn't perform its core function and cannot make a phone call?
Microsoft employees and managers seem to me to lack social ability.
...remove features that everybody wants ...and then add them back and sell that as an improvement.
Now seriously: I hate the modern dumbing down of UIs. Yes, I understand they're geared towards non geeks and many also designed for touchscreens but at least give us the option to also have a "classic",dense, keyboard-and-mouste-optimized UI. And, at the very least have some way to configure the "advanced" options, even if it's something as ugly as Firefox's "about:config"
Everything old is new again...
Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging
Somebody should make a reply video "Microsoft Re-Designs the Skype Interface".
The second they gave me windows I couldn't break off, or shrink, or remove, a ton of extra stuff all popping up, tried to take over my entire screen rather than be a small list of people on the right that I could double-click to talk to someone... I never bothered to run it or update it ever again.
Steam just did the same with Steam Friends but at least I can just close that shit, but it's annoying that when you Shift-Tab or when you load up the program it's back again. Seriously, fuck off with that. I don't talk to people on Steam, I don't want it.
Skype's already lost all my usage by doing that. Steam has other purposes.
Microsoft buying Skype, joining it with Lync, and integrating it all into the office suite sounded really good. They managed to botch every single aspect of that - from Skype for Business being different to Skype for Home, introducing Skype for Metro and removing Skype for Desktop, and then not actually putting it into some part of the Office suite that'll use it most (Home & Student) at all. Then tie it all into a Microsoft account that some people might not want at all.
Textbook example of how to buy a piece of software without understanding it and not only destroying it, but failing to then even use your competing software to do that job better. I could justify the business case behind buying and killing Skype if they wanted to push Lync / their own product. But they just ballsed up every aspect of it.
I hope the $8.5bn was worth it guys. I know I haven't used it since.
Lower bandwidth requirements by using some decent codecs.
Skype's been working on that for quite a while. The company released the SILK codec as free software and worked with Xiph in 2010 to combine it with Xiph's "CELT" research codec to form what is now known as Opus.
Serious question - what's the best replacement? I would love to move away from Skype, mainly because they have removed the ability to add a phone number to your contacts.
How do I access other contacts while on a video call!
Can we go back to focusing on FUNCTIONALITY first?
Last time I checked, skype for linux was infamous for "Poor Network Connection" messages, garbling the audio, poor quality video, while on the same connection, google talk/hangouts video was perfect.
The old "pre-MSFT" skype for linux was excellent quality. This skype is well, lets just say it has about the same functionality as a text based messenger, so almost useless.
60down, 10up, under 30ms ping. hardly should be a "poor" network connection.
I have been a Skype user from the very beginning. At first it was a convenient way of avoiding those high long distance fees we used to have for domestic calls. Remember when we had to choose a "long distance provider" for our PSTN landlines?
When Skype added subscription plans for foreign cell and landline phones, we sprang for the pricey world plan, to communicate with our plethora of overseas relatives. All but two of these people are too old to have ever heard of anything beyond landlines, so that arrangement suited us fine.
Then Microsoft got hold of Skype, and they have systematically screwed phone subscription users out of all the features that allow us to use phone subscriptions. The iOS app no longer even supports adding and managing phone numbers. I can understand adding social media features to capture the young, but why are they still offering telephone subscriptions that the product no longer supports? Why remove function after function that a lot of users still need?
FaceTime is a beautifully simple interface that Just Works, provided that you're an Apple user calling another Apple user. Steve Jobs (peace be upon him) promised to open up the interface to all comers, but a patent troll called Virnetx hijacked the FaceTime implementation, forcing Apple to change the implementation to one that cannot be open-sourced.
Whatsapp.
No sig today...
FaceTime.
I miss powwow
Skype is dead, thanks to the innovators at M$FT. Long live its competitors.
Stop.
There's othing remotely difficult about any version of Skype be it SfB/Messenger/Lync or the civvie version.
You are now past the line where you're too retarded to be able to use a computer, the easiest piece of technology to use that has ever texisted.
SfB is not a buggy pile, either. Literally the only thing about it that makes it worse than Lync is its poor performance.
We're literally still using a 20+ year old ICQ bastardization, and we only sign in to SfB because certain group chats are there. You have no idea how user friendly Skype is if you aren't using ancient software. It doesn't need to change. Your dumb ass does.
All three apps I listed are better than Skype. Especially Viber. There is no good reason using that flaming pile of excrement called Skype.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I have no problem with its UI. My complaint is basic stuff like Search messages need to function properly. I can enter a term that I know is in my history but it doesn't find it--or if it does, it's incomplete. If you were to scroll back into history, the farther you scroll, the less it loads as it "waits" for the old entries from the cloud to come in. I don't really care about emojis which could be disabled in v7. These things makes it much less useful from v7.
A workaround to the search is your entire history can be exported and I can search that.
some of you fuckers really need to read the terms of service for skype. Done? Yes? Shocked? YES.
How about calling it "MSN Messenger"?
Seriously the photo sharing in that was perfect.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Personally, I'd like to see TeamView melded into Skype for those involved tech support sessions where you need to converse with someone and control their computer at the same time.
I'm not shilling, but there are lots of superior options, pick your poison:
Google Hangouts
Zoom
WebConnect
TeamViewer
GoToMeeting
Adobe Connect
Slack Video Calls
Confrere
Cliq
A lot of these programs are cross-overs between remote desktop/support, video conferencing, and internet calling. The convergence makes sense when you realise Skype added desktop sharing, and remote desktop added chat then voice then video calling to assist with support. Also a lot of the collaboration tools (e.g. Slack) also support video calling.
Something I've been really impressed with of late is a lot of these programs now run in-browser and making/taking a call can be as easy as going to a website.
There are also a lot of mobile chat programs that now support void and/or video calling:
WhatsApp
Telegram
FaceTime
They needed time for finish putting the many back doors there liberal controllers (Clinton, Soros, etc) demanded for to use to spy on conservatives with.
Why to use Skype if we have Signal?
what's app?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I didn't know anybody was still using it... or is this like Microsoft's smart phone OS, portable audio player, and similar product line-up?
Ever since I got video/voice streaming to work on my websites, wtf is the point of using skype? Unencrypted communication with a man in the middle criminally convicted organization? Yeah, lets do that, sounds brilliant.
I'd drop Skype tomorrow but I can't find a cheaper London phone number provider than £31/year
>/dev/null 2>&1
The most important improvement done around 8.28 version is .... TaDa! ... previous versions starting from 7.40 were presenting blank white page instead of login screen. That was for sure impacting "experience" ....
it is again working on Windows 7
Now it is working, one is even able again to run 2 instances of skype (yeah, work and family ...) ... ...
But still I cannot store frequently called phone numbers as "phone only" contacts
How can I "invite to skype" **** web conference dial in
Discord is another excessively processor intensive Electron bloated monster, like Slack before it. Why can't people just use proper programming languages and write efficient code anymore?
Should switch back to that! Or the original Delphi version of Skype :-)
File transfers in Discord is a joke. I forget the max size in Skype but in Discord it's 8 MB. That "your file is too powerful" message is a slap in the face.
I know they want to store the files on their servers but there's no reason to not do that for 8 MB files and just allow 999999999 GB files with direct transfer to the receiver (requires that both are online during the transfer). Not being able to easily swap files around with for example work colleagues in 2018 is a joke.
The mere fact that Skype doesn't save conversation history is enough to warrant forcing them to close doors once and for all.
The NATO "big-boy internets" on your side of the connection won't help if your colleague happens to be in a Cold War neutral country. And even if your country has NATO "big boy internets" inside an urban building, the experience in rural areas (satellite), outdoors, or in a vehicle (cellular) may be more like that of Cold War neutral countries. (I'm talking about the USA, if it matters.)
What were you planning on doing in Skype that needs a higher bandwidth than wideband voice?
I like to use webrtc sites like appear.in. No signup, just send a link and you're having a video chat.