UPDATE: Screenshots including one of my friends and text mentioning him have been altered to hide his identity.
Apple added Skype for iPad 1.0.1273 to the iPad’s App store last night. Skype soon tweeted they were not quite ready for the launch, tidying up web sites and such, but they are ready now. Here’s the YouTube announcement video. You can also pick up your copy using your iPad’s App Store app. This is Skype’s second iOS app, if you don’t include those from Qik. Mobile operators should love this; anything that drives up data plan charges replaces lost income from landlines and mobile voice minutes.
Let’s walk through the features, a long call, and talk about Skype’s editing of the design.
CORRECTION: You can now be in group video calls and pay for a Skype Premium subscription, just like the Windows users. You can now screenshare in group video calls, which not even Skype for Windows users can do. From Skype’s blog post and change log:
Major changes in this update compared to previous release are:
Improved Multi-tasking
Group Screen Sharing (requires Premium subscription)
Sidebar enhancement
Support for Mac’s built-in HD and Logitech’s B910 HD cameras
Its new one-to-one video calling features require a user-facing camera; if you have two cameras, you can use both and switch between cameras during a call. [Look-at-me! Look-at-that! Look-at-me!] Skype has yet to offer group video calling on mobiles.
Android Skype users enjoy better integration with the phone’s native address book than their iOS cousins. You can launch a Skype call directly from the address book. iPhone users cannot.
A new user interface looks deliciously iPhone-like. So does the video advert below, with its white backgrounds, folksy music, and shiny actors. The Skype client shown loads and works very fast compared to my own experience. Reminder to self: must buy a more muscular Android phone and cut a thousand people from my Skype contacts.
Android Fragmentation Alert: Video may not work on your Android phone or tablet. You need Android v2.1 on most phones and v2.2 on Samsung Galaxy S. Skype says they’ve tested video on: Google Nexus S, HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro handsets.
Battery Note: The app will stay open in the background so you can still receive Skype IMs and phone calls. sangolt88 commented on YouTube “Still no freakin exit button? lol.” So “Please sign out of Skype to close the application” if you need to preserve battery life.
Facebook Instant Messaging – chat with your Facebook friends directly from Skype.
Facebook Contacts Tab – a new tab within Skype dedicated to your Facebook contacts list.
‘Like’ and even comment on a Facebook status – You can also use the Facebook News Feed within Skype to easily "like" a friend’s status or comment on it without logging into Facebook.
New Call Control Toolbar – featuring redesigned graphic icons.
Improvements to the saving of a phone number in the "Call Phones" section.
Skype posted their update to Skype for Mac. Download it now for security updates (although which ones are not specified), minor bug fixes, and to resolve video freezing in high packet-loss networks.
Download now in the Android market’s Skype page. “What’s in this version: 1. Security update. 2. Calling over your 3G connection is available worldwide – now including the US.” via Android Community.
Improved quality of video sent to Skype on mobile devices by rotating video on the sender’s side. [Clever!] CORRECTION: Skype for Windows rotates video sent from mobile Skype, so the mobile user doesn’t have to. [Still clever!]
Skype shows users’ presence icons on collapsed contact profile cards. [Presence without wasting screen space.]
Conversation topic editing button is now always available on the conversation header. Click the small "i" button. [Topics change, so should headers. Better findability.]
If a phone number is added to a profile after a failed call attempt, Skype starts a call automatically.
Automatically switch to SMS entry after user adds mobile phone number to profile after failing to send SMS due to lack of phone number
Those Internet Explorer “Script error” popups and slow script warning message are yet to be defeated.
Download Skype for Linux 2.2.0.25 Beta. From the announcement and change log, major new features are Skype Access (buying Wi-Fi hotspot access by the minute with Skype credits), support for call waiting and holding, improved audio/video quality in calls, conference call hosting. Other improvements: drag and drop contacts into calls or to contact groups; support for multiple text sender IDs under SMS options; dynamic update video devices list when it changes; and support for receiving differing aspect video correctly both in window and full screen. Dan York says the update was a long time coming (a year? really?), it is welcome, but still missing a native-64-bit release.
Download Skype for Mac 5.1.0.914. New features, seen in the Windows version:
Skype highlights avatars of active speakers so you know who is speaking.
You can pick recently called numbers from the dial pad.
Skype asks for quality feedback after your call.
Also, “contact groups” are shown on the right hand side, to leave more room in the sidebar. Does this work for you? As always, plenty of discussion in the forums and you can report bugs in Jira.
DownloadSkype for Windows 5.2.0.102. A few minor tweaks, a bunch of bug fixes, but it is a Beta version. Beta, in this case, means early exposure to new bugs and new features, although few new features are now visible.
Join the Skype 6.X Text Chat Room