Skype

The new update Seems to be accessible

Odd. I don't see it in the app store, as an update anyway. Is this maybe a separate download and not an update the way i'm thinking of it? that is, do I need to download a new app like with what audio boo did and sometimes does with their major Version release?

I know someone who got the update 5 hours ago, and I still haven't gotten it. I always thought app updates rolled out at the same time, but maybe not.

I updated it via iTunes as usual, no separate download.

Lol. the update is not in itunes either. I checked. So no it is not in the west coast here. Ah well. Maybe my theory on apple rolign out updates by region is sound then based on what i"m seeing.

LOL for the first time Europe got something before

I'm able to see the update on my phone, but trying to install it brings a message that says, "The item you tried to buy is no longer available." Doing some searching on Google brought up the results that the update has been pulled from the US app store, but nobody seems to know why yet.

Sure is odd. I've got a notification thing that says Skype has an update, but like everyone else who hasn't gotten it yet, it says it's no longer available. we'll have to wait and see if we can find out why it was pulled. Time will tell!

Hi,Hi, I got the message saying the update was no longer available.
I found that if I searched for skype, then found the skype for iPhone option, I was able to go into it, then tap the update option.
At that point I was prompted for touch ID and after giving that the update downloaded fine.
So you have to actually tap on the app entry after searchinf for it then tap update and it should work.

Now, on to my question, does anyone know how to edit the recent conversation list to remove old entries?
There used to be an edit button but this is now gone.
Instead I am seeing a list of conversations, and beside each conversation VoiceOver reads me a dimmed button named after the first word of the conversation.
So, for example lets say I have a conversation with the word Hi as the starting word, one flick would read me the name of the contact and the last message from the conversation and when it was posted.
Assuming the first word of that message was Hi, another flick would take me to a button labeled as Hi which VoiceOver says is dimmed.
Or if a message said Just called you, the button would be called Just called you and announced as dimmed, and be after the information about the conversation.

And it's not working here, I keep getting the same message. This is really strange.

I just got it to. This app is no longer able to be purchased. I've never seen that before. did skype pull it? I did an audio boo which can be found here.

Take care to all.

According to www.macrumors, the update is still live just it is earlier for some then others. Not a big problem IMO.

Actually I got it to work. apparently you need to reinstall the app, that is compleatly uninstall and then reinstall the app. her eare only 7 reviews on this new version.

Take care.

A podcast is out on the skype version. Check it out here.

I go over most of the features and even manage to miss someone's call and message. lol! Take care.¹

Enjoy.

Hello Marrie,

What are your impressions of the new interface? Does it have accessibility issues? How does one navigate between the different screens of the app, etc.?

My impressions are I love it 100 percent and as for screens all theya re are seprate buttons in the app. Each one flys open at the bottom and makes it quite convenient. I love it better then the older interface. it's just so so fast as you saw in the podcast.

After doing some exploring through the Skype 5.0 today. You may know or not know that the NEW Skype 5.0 has under gone a dramatic transformation. So the old UI layout that you have become accustom before are now completely different.

In my observation so far. It does appear to be Mostly Accessible. For now I will use the keyword Mostly and not Fully Accessible after I can do more testing.

Everything appears to be labeled correctly and there doesn't seem to be any problems that I have seen in with VoiceOver.

The only exception so far is that I have not tried the Message area and so any observation by others would be greatly appreciated.

Now let's begin in what Skype has done in terms of the layout.

The first thing you will notice is that they went with a Vertical layout. Least that is how it appears to me as a VoiceOver user. The other thing to notice is that the tabs along the bottom row are now gone. So no more tabs.

Here are a few things that you will notice starting from the top and working down to the bottom. Remember, that you will be using a lot more swiping gestures of flicking to the right and left than ever before.

Starting with the Skype Home
At any time you want to get back to the Home. You will need to double tap on this.

My Info
As this suggest. Check out the information about yourself and such.

Now the next two items are the:
Recent
Favorite

If you double tap on those items. It will seem like nothing has happened. Just like the Skype Home mentioned above. Truth to be known. It has changed. It technically doesn't change for like going to a new page. Rather the information is located right below the People. So your list of Recent and Favorites one must swipe and go past the People before you will see these information. Very strange. How I understand n what is happening is that each time your double tap on something. A set of information will swipe in and out. We don't see this but this is how it appears to be doing.

However, if one double tap on the People. You will be sent to your contact list. You can from here find those that are Online or a list of all of the People in your Contact list. They layout is similar as if we were in the Skype Home but slightly different. Remember that the default People is set to All. So it will show All of your contacts. Must must double tap on the All button to change in what or how you want to view People. There is the Recent, Favorite followed by Search and then you will see this All button. After this you will then hear the list of your Contacts. The More button is at the bottom right. Double tap on this and you can Add People to your Contact list.

Dial Pad
This is pretty self-explanatory. If you want to use a dial pad to make a call. You come here.

Message
This is the area that I have not done much with. I would be curious how accessible this is from other users. As I don't really use this much. This is how you can start a new chat with your Contact users.

More
This button is always located or is found in most cased. At the bottom right hand corner of the screen. You are able to perform certain things. Such as Adding People, Marking things as Read and such. It will vary in which part of the app you are located at.

Overall, it is alright. Not my favorite but I don't really have a choice. It is something one will definitely have to get used to the layout. Is it inaccessible? No, it appears that Microsoft did a great job in making this Mostly Accessible. So no fear that the sky is falling with this release. ;)

This update is one of those that you will either Love it or Hate it.

I love to hear in what you think of the NEW update and in what you have found that is not VoiceOver accessible.

For those that don't know what to do. To update or not? I can't personally answer that question. I would highly recommend in checking out your friends phone if they have taken the leap. Hang tight and see in what others think of it by leaving comments below in what you think of it. Especially, if you use this heavily on the Chat features. Hopefully, we will get more input on this feature from others. As Alex has mentioned some Comments back. There is no really easy way to remove a Conversations and such. So I'm just unsure how this is suppose to work. So there are still some unanswer questions.

A for myself? Well, I don't really use it other than for calling people with it. In this case its alright. Call me old fashion but I really love the tabs better. However, these days it is all about appealing to this with vision with these fancy sliders. It just seem it pretty popular to have these kind of Vertical menus with sliding menus that come in and out of the sides. I'm sure they are quite an eye candy for those that can enjoy them. For those like me. Well I'm a party pooper. They just don't appeal to me. ;)

What's New in Version 5.0

• Overall performance improvements - faster start up and fluid animations.
• A new modern hub centric design putting recent conversations first - just swipe to see your favourite people or contacts.
• Richer and more reliable messaging: create groups, share photos (even to offline contacts) and video messages.
• In-app notifications for quick conversation switching, and in-app controls to manage notifications.
• A new simplified, modern voice and video calling experience.

Actually the mark all as read is always there. That more button to me does not seem to change at the botom. I kind of like that that way i can just go current. The chat part is 100 percent accessible. so no need to worry about that.

Hi all, I have just installed this newly revamp app. One thing I think I don't quite like is that the conversation sound when you send a chat is gone in my case. Can someone confirm this? The thing I love is, you can either totally disable the push notifications or individually disable it. So far, haven't been able to test the in app notification yet.
Thanks.

I can confirm this. I dunno if it is a voice over issue like if they disabled the sound when voice over is on or what. or if it is an ios thing as some other apps I use the sounds do not happen wiht vo on.

Take care.

Hi, just to also let people know that when you double tap on Skype to open the app, you no longer get the woosh sound you used to hear when the app openes,
the sound that you do get on the pc.

The only thing i don't know how to do it is deleting recent chats or calls from the app.

it has also been pointed out that messages no longer read automatically.
I have also found that if you upgrade a version of an app as soon as the upgrade comes out, if you delete and redownload the app, as long as you do it fairly shortly after the update comes out you can usually download the older version of the app again, even though the details give the current version information the older version is still downloaded after you hit the download option, then of course you are still offered the upgrade option again.
At time of writing in the UK I have just used this option to dowgrade my skype version to the previous version, this is around a day after the update was available hear, so I would suggest anyone who wants to downgrade should try this method, of course I don't know how long older app versions remain in the app store so I would suggest trying this as soon as possible.
Of course the better course of action if you can is to upgrade on your device first making sure you have the old app version safely in your itunes.

What's New in Version 5.1

• Remove conversations from recent -> press and hold on a conversation to remove the conversation from recent.

• Edit a message -> press and hold on a message in a chat to edit.

• Add favourites directly on the favourites hub screen.

• VoiceOver improvements.

• General improvements.
will be interested to know if this update resolves the issue of chat messages not reading automatically as that's why I went running back to the old version when I heard that was an issue.
If there are other issues still present looking forward to hearing about them, I still have the old pre 5.0 in my iTunes just in case I want to go back.
I have already noticed that you still don't get the woosh sound when you tap on the app that you used to get before 5.0, not a real issue but just saying its still there in 5.1.
I have already tested removing conversations from the recent list, and it works very well tapping and holding on them, you get a nice menu asking if you want to remove the chat or not, its much quicker than with the old method of before 5.0 having to tap on edit then finding the delete button next to each conversation.

how disappointing about the chat messages, will be going back to the older version then. I just tweeted the Skype account about the chat messages, has anyone else officially been in contact with Skype about this?

The fact that messages don't read automaticly for me isn't a deal breaker. What I really like in this update is the return of the contacts filter, or people list filter as Skype calls it. Double tapping on this button gives you choices to filter your contacts, just like in previous versions. You can again show all contacts, online contacts or Skype contacts. This makes it a heck of a lot easier for me since I have so many and it helps narrow things down a bit. Nice update!

I also like the ability of the long press to get stuff done, that is the pass through jesture.

Take care.

With both the last version and the one that came out today, if the keyboard is up, I can't get to the send button. I have to hit back and reenter the conversation to send a message. Anyone else seeing this, or have a solution that I haven't thought of?

Hello. Though the subject line is harsh, it's meant to be. Not because I enjoy being hurtful, but someone dislikes the not reading of imcoming chats. Well you know hat, Voice mails being played is also not suported yet. If it said, not supported yet, it might mean, gasp, Skype is working on it? Let's remember it's Microsoft and they aren't known to live life in the fast lane, to paraphrase from the Eagles.

I'm not familiar with that eagles piece but to find the send button all you need to do is vo right past the field where you type. I showed how to do this I think in my podcasts. I don't have that issue at all.

As you can see in this thread many of us are angry that skype took support away. They keep saying they will release an updte next week. Why did they take it away in the first place. I want documented evidence as to why, stuff I can read and understand of corse, but I want memos and stuff proving that their decision had no viable other solution.

What's New in Version 5.2

• View contact profile -> to view the profile of a contact, simply tap on any contact in your people list and then select "profile" from the menu.

• Voice message support -> 5.2 now offers the ability to both send and receive voice messages.

• Add participants to existing chats -> in any 1:1 or group chat, simply tap on the menu and select "add participants".

• Remove contacts without having to block them.

• General improvements.

I just had someone talk to me, and I can confirm that the issue still exists with VoiceOver not reading chat messages automatically.

Hi, well I just had a pleasant surprise.
I decided to contact Skype support about chat messages not reading automatically since 5.0, and I went on the Skype support website, I was dismayed to find they only offered a text chat service, fully expecting to have one of those horrible sites where pages constantly refresh or something flash based.
But to my surprise I found the chat was accessible and easy to use, in fact chat messages read automatically with jaws from the person I ended up chatting to.
There were one or two times things didn't read automatically but I think that was because they sent messages at the same time I was typing however I found it an easy and pleasant experience, I would recommend anyone who wants to report issues or who is having issues using the ios app to use the text chat service.
there was even a typing status indicator for when the person on the other end was typing and jaws read this.

hiya, wow, that's something. to have a text chat system on a webpage actually work well with a screen reader. lol. not too offen you get to see that happen. good on ya. i'll have to give that a go.
now, for a comment about the new skype 5.2. yes, in fact, messages do read automatically, if you are in the chat where they come in. how ever, it is only reading the message, not who it's from. which of course, would make handling a group chat rather hard.
but at least they are getting there.

That's interesting for me at least messages are not reading at all for me automatically.
Something else I noticed about deleting items from the recent view is that before Skype 5.0 we had access to the actions setting on the rotor which let us swipe down then double tap to delete, this functionality seems to have disappeared.

yep, i noticed that too. another thing to try get them to reimplement.

mmJust wondering though if I chat to them again mentioning this issue I wonder if they might forget about my original report, I wonder if it would be better if someone else mentions that issue, or maybe mention it after the next version comes out.

no, they won't forget about your previous report. they need any feedback they can get.

Hi, my name is David and I'm one of the developers on the Skype for iOS app and I have worked on some of these features. I would very much like to know how they could be made better.

The way that new messages are currently being read works like this:
New messages are only read if you are currently in that chat.

If the chat is with only one person, it only reads the message (since there is only one person the message could come from).

If the chat is with a group, it will read the name of the person who sent it followed by the message. If the same person sends multiple messages in a row, it will only read the message. As soon as another person in the chat writes a message it will read the name of that person again.

Regarding reading new messages everywhere in the app: we are not sure how this would work best, but it would be great to get your feedback on this. We want to make it easy to distinguish between new messages in the chat you are active in and messages elsewhere.

Reading the name and the message would work in simple cases, but if the same person was in one or more group chats it could become ambiguous what chat the message came from. Reading all the information could get verbose. For example: "New message in (Chat name) from (Person). (Message)".

Regarding messages not being read at all: I would have to look into that.

Playing a different sound could be a good way of distinguishing between messages in the chat you are in and other messages but it could be hard to discover what the different sounds mean.

It would also still be possible for the person that sent the message to be in more than one group chat with you, in which case it would be ambiguous which group chat the message belongs to. That may not be a big issue since the two chats would almost have to be active (meaning receiving new messages) at the same time for this to become confusing. I would still like to avoid it if possible. One solution could be to read the name of the chat after the text of the message. For example: "(Person's name): (Message). In (Chat name)".

Hi David its great to see your engaging with us, and especially great you know about accessibility etc.
If I can provide any information to help you with regards to messages not reading at all please let me know.
I have noticed some interesting behaviour, if I leave the screen focused on the last message I received then when a new message comes in the message I leave focus on is read, but not the new message just posted.
If I leave focus on the typing edit field messages are not read at all.
at the moment notifications of messages do read when you are not in Skype, its just for me at least in the actual IM window messages do not seem to read properly with the conditions I describe above.

Personally I am not bothered about the contact name if its a 1 on 1 chat, but I am bothered about contacts not being announced as offline.
Should I still go on to the text chat service and mention about the delete option not being available on the VoiceOver rotor in the recent conversation list?

fantastic to see you on here David.
ahh, I was unaware of it working like that in groups. thanks for the clarification.
as the previous person spoke of, a sound, which tends to be played already, is a fairly good indication that a chat has come in within a chat that is not currently focused.
so as long as it plays the sound, to indicate a new chat in a different window, as it currently does, this should not cause confusion. I have yet to notice any sound playing while a chat comes in within the chat I'm currently displaying. so this makes it easy to identify a new chat coming in that is not on the current screen. I'm unsure as to if I should be getting a sound when a chat comes in on the screen I'm currently in or not, but it appears not to for me, anyways. you can clear that one up, I'm sure.
another thing that needs working on, is that now you have the long press to remove chats from the history, and so on, this needs to be translated to a rotor option called action for voiceover, as it once was in Skype for iPhone 4X. this makes it much easier for a VoiceOver user to delete chats, as in stead of the VoiceOver gesture of double tap and hold, then double tap to remove, they need only flick up or down once, and double tap to delete.
I'm sure we'll come up with many other ideas for you. everybody has a slightly different usage of Skype for iPhone, so we all come up with different things that should or could be done. LOL.
good luck, and hope to see you stay here and help us make an already great product, Skype, even better for us on iOS.

hi david. re your last post, with this part.
example: "(Person's name): (Message). In (Chat name)".
i would only do that, if it's not in the chat you are currently focused on. otherwise chat's would get very slow to keep up with.

Thank you. That is useful information that can help me track down the issue with messages not being read.

Regarding the contacts not being announced as offline:
In the list of "People", it is announced if a user is online but not if it's offline. There is no graphical indication that the user is offline (other than the absence of a green dot) but I can see that the absence of the word "online" is not as clear, and that is probably something that should be changed.

The same is true within a chat. It is announced if a person is online but not if it's offline. This should probably also change to work the same as in the list of "People".

The list of "Recents" is a list of conversations. If that is a chat with only one person then it has the same name as that person. A conversation isn't technically online or offline but I can see that the information makes sense if there is only one other person in the chat. This is something I will have to discuss with my coworkers tomorrow.

I will have to see if there are other places where the offline status is indicated graphically as the absence of a green dot and see if they have the same problem.

Regarding the delete option being missing from the rotor:
I will have to look at this to see why it's missing. You don't have to report it again.