Back in the day, we all used phones to communicate. Then Skype came along and changed the world. Sure, there were other systems before it, but Skype had it all sewn up with a neat little package that bundled the hallowed VOIP with a simple interface and of course – It was free!! Later, video was added (that Beta seemed to last forever!) and the whole thing really took off. Skype has always had some big hitters looking over its shoulder with the likes of the goliath Windows Messenger (Currently in its ‘Live’ incarnation) and the Gmail (With its flexibility and low resource usage) to name but a few.
With this in mind the major release of Skype 4.0 was much anticipated… What new wonders can we behold?… Well, I can tell you one thing – if you’re expecting better video you may be sadly disappointed. :-\
Last week if you’d have asked me what my preferred video calling software was I’d have said Gmail and Skype were pretty much 50/50, this week however it has to be Gmail. The new Skype 4.0 video looks like a nasty police photo-fit or, worse, a deliberately pixelated news item. Yes it gets a little better if you give it a few minutes but the previous video was clearly better (IMHO). They have, however, done a good job with the voice side of things which is undoubtedly smooth, and sure, there are some new whistles and bells to play with (the “Open” or “Open with Video” seems so obvious now) but why would you release an update with worse performance on the one thing everybody stares at???…
Now if only Google could make their video a little more resilient to all those sudden crashes….
