Introducing the new Skype for Mac, now available in Beta
It’s out of beta – read about the latest version!
It was worth the wait – the new Skype 5.0 is now available for Mac today in beta, introducing a revamped look and feel that simplifies navigation and provides a more Mac-like experience. For example, the Skype app has been brought together in one window for ease-of-use, and the Mac address book has been integrated, making it possible for you to call, IM and SMS your contacts when they are online or offline.
The new Skype for Mac also offers our popular new feature – group video calling – which allows you to make video calls with more than two people at a time as long as all participants are on the new Mac beta or Skype for Windows 5.0. Group video calling brings people together like never before, allowing you to do more things together with your friends, family and colleagues whenever you are apart.
The new Skype for Mac also includes the following new features:
- New call control bar — Hang up, mute and more from a mini Skype toolbar that sits on top of any web pages, documents or photos you’ve got open
- Search chat content to easily navigate past conversations
- Offline IM so that you can send and receive instant messages even if the recipient is offline
- Personalise contacts via user profiles
- Quickly rejoin calls if your Internet connection fails momentarily
- Floating Contacts Monitor to see your online contacts and contact groups
Try out the new Skype for Mac in beta and tell us what you think using the Skype > Provide Skype Feedback menu item. And stay posted as we roll out the official version soon.
I’m been using the beta since it came out and it is still very unusable I am uninstalling today, group calls are hard to set up , using chat will talking with video not easy to do, friends have accidentally called previous group calls by accident, the empty window can not be made smaller – this is the biggest problem – I have a second screen set up for communications – yammer, twitter, 2 email accounts , skype, a journal and clock – Skype is just too big – especially when a conversation is not going on.
Please, please Skype developers. Respect the need to conserve screen real-estate. The UI may be an improvement is layout and organization, but the amount of wasted space and size taken up by chats is inexcusable. Please allow us to customize this appearance.
Skype, please do the sensible thing. Throw away this version, fire the designers, and start again.
If you don’t do this, and you drop support for 2.8, well, you’re making things really easy for your competitors.
Awful awful awful. The interface is far too large, having everything in one window is a royal pain in the @$$, and what’s with not being able to have a chat window open at the same time as a video call? Eff this version. /downgrade.
With this upgrade I ask myself, what problem are you really trying to solve?
Why is Skype yelling at me — implying their huge size and space it takes up (emotionally, too)? I know you can never please everyone, but why such a dramatic change? Keep what you have and just add features and/or give me options.
You’re a multi-billion $ company; can’t you hire some UX specialists that test and analyse usage?
Sorry to say but I’m not loving it. The only way I can have a video conference is by telling my contacts to upgrade to the new version. I can’t do that to them.
And pls, is there anyone from Skype on this blog reading and commenting?
See you soon, R
Sadly, I’m going to echo most of the comments above. I’ve found this version too large, completely non-intuitive to move. I’m constantly searching for ways to do things. When in a skype call, the chat window disappears and you have to hunt for it.
I’ve spent several hours trying to figure out how to share my screen and never found it. Worst yet, there seems to be no help for the beta. All help language talks about various menus and icons, but has no illustrations so you know what is what. So many different things to click on, spread all over the place.
Its rare that I do this, but I’m uninstalling and going back to 2.8. I am wasting too much time and screen space trying to do the basics that I’ve always easily done with skype.
(If nothing else — why not have it mirror the layout of the windows version if you don’t want to make it a real Mac app?) I asked some windows friends to tell me where things were, and they said my version looked nothing like theirs either. So why was it designed this way? A non-Mac interface that doesn’t even resemble the windows interface?
Sure hope this goes back to the design board before releasing an official 5.0 version.
Thanks for listening.
I realize this is a beta, so this is just me pointing out something you need to look at. I tried sending files from the Mac version to someone using the latest Windows version. There was no apparent way for me to see the progress of the file transfer, despite poking around in every menu I could find. No notification of the file transfer was received at the other end.
no file transfer window?
massive whitespace contact list?
…all for better conference calls?
Terrible beta. I’ve reinstalled 2.8
Please send this message to the head of your marketing.
It’s ludicrous to charge €5.99/month for Skype Premium. The only benefits are group video and on-line conversations with a human from Customer Service. A few ignorant subscribers might pay this outrageous fee to get group video, but how long before they find out that your competition, e.g. TokBox and DimDim, offer group video for free?
I notice several immediate improvements like call quality and ease of use. The former is much better with the beta version and it seems quite stable. Not had a call drop out since I started using it. So kudos there. It does take up a lot of the screen, but then so does the Windows version when fully open. I have had zero success with group video call and am disappointed that for business purposes you need to be on Windows. That is a big mistake and needs to be rectified. I’d like to take advantage of the business approach, but we have both Macs and PCs. Other than that it works well and even conference calls are less of an issue with voice quality on a lower bandwith. You are on the right tracks, but please don’t isolate Mac users from the features in the WIndows version.
I’m a new mac user so I have no problems with the design. My issue is with the unwanted callers barging in even when I have my privacy settings set to contacts only. What’s up with that? Can that issue get fixed please?
Reading a broad selection of all comments I won’t even test the new Beta, as I also like skype to be unobtrusive and am in no hurry for group-video-conference.
(although I do use the group-talk-conference from time to time.)
What I need is a way to group my skype-out contacts in frequently used and others and this in such a way, that only the frequently used (max. 200 contacts) are downloaded on my dualphones. Hope you find a way to solve this problem.
I just have to say, that if I’d wanted Window’s Skype, I would have Windows, not Mac.
This is a huuuge step back for Skype, and judging by the other comments, I’m not the only one who thinks this.
Please Skype team, reconsider your new version.
Umm basically everything everyone else said about the design, huge, all one window, can’t collapse or make anything smaller…
Right at the beginning you say “provides a more Mac-like experience.” and then in the next line immediately contradict it with “For example, the Skype app has been brought together in one window for ease-of-use”
Do any of your programmers actually USE Macs? Mac apps are NOT all one window. The whole point is there are separate windows that you can move around and sometimes hide. This interface is garbage, sorry PLEASE revert back to the 2.8 style or at least offer a “classic” option in settings.
On a positive note though, one thing I do like is the integrated chat in the video window. That was annoying sometimes to find the separate chat window. But still the video window’s minimum size is waaay too big, especially when I’m not even in a video call and there’s just a huge avatar (or more usually a stock Skype buddy image there) just wasting space.
OK I’ve tested it a bit further, and after the initial shock it’s actually not bad as long as all the extra useless whitespace is removed. I figured out how to hide the top avatar area during text only chats so that’s ok. And I do actually like the chat box integrated in the video box. If all the needless, screen wasting white-space is trimmed off this will actually be a good update. I have a 1080P monitor and even I think it’s a huge waste of screen real estate. I can only image what it’s like on a laptop screen.