Friday, March 18, 2011

Skype 5.0 on Mac

I installed today the latest Skype update and it got a total overhaul. Completely new look and feel. Three instead of two windows (dial pad, online list and complete address list)




The Facebook function is unfortunately not available with Apple at the moment.
This 5.0 update is mostly a look and feel update and it takes time to get used to it. I did not see better voice or video quality. The look is really weird. The dial pad and online contacts are in same color as FaceTime, but then the main Skype contacts window is in colors like iTunes. Why using two different color schemes?



I like how well now address book contacts are integrated. The user can choose to see the contacts as a list or as images to flip through. I am disappointed that Facebook is not yet in the Apple version.

Right now Skype is still my most used video calling app, but only because most of my oversea friends and family don't have yet Apple computers or iPhones with cameras.

Otherwise FaceTime would be an alternative because of the better image ad voice quality, however Skype has much better functions than FaceTime.

What I don't understand is, that Apple did a very good job with iChat and all these cool functions in iChat for sharing etc. Why did they do such a bad job with FaceTime UI on iMac and with so limited functions? And then the user has to pay $1 for it.

FaceTime can only be a competition to Skype if Apple steps up.


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