As the post title says, the end of Skype is approaching. My experience with the Skype app on both the iPad and iPhone got stressful. From the inability to stop it from repeating the same messages more than three times, to being unable to flick around and hearing the messages over and over again, to suddenly being unable to use Braille Screen Input in the message box, it just seemed to get worse by the day.
I eventually deleted it off my phone, but despite its issues, and back when I used it and then transferred to Discord, it was quite a memorable part of my childhood. Back when it worked like a charm, I remember making calls and messaging friends back in late elementary school through my first or second year of high school.
I know we are going to be moving to Microsoft Teams, but Teams isn't the same; Teams isn't Skype. If you say "Teams," people will be confused. The magical word was "Skype," which triggered a lot of memories, and connections most of us could look back on.
You can read more about Skype's closure here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7vxlrvxyeo.amp
What are your thoughts on this?
Comments
Re: The end of Skype approaches
To be quite honest, Skype is nothing but a place full of crypto bots, spam etc. nowadays. It is not what it used to be before. For worse or better, it is not a bad part on Microsoft's end this time. As soon as they bought Skype, it was no longer the same - a simple, clean interface which aimed at people talking and staying in touch with each other.
To also be honest on another note, we already have so many messaging apps, that Skype has sadly, become superfluous in the category of messaging apps.
If we must talk about accessibility, it has gotten terrible with the years that have passed.
Every thing has an end, and this might be Skype's end. And while the phrase "the end of the beginning" could apply, if Teams is really to be the new app that replaced, and has already replaced Skype, let's face it, that Microsoft is a company with shady policies and leave it at that.
It's also sad, because…
It's also sad, because according to the article, Microsoft had rewritten Skype back in 2017-2018. And it had pushed away tons of users. They tried to make it the clone of all other messaging apps, adding things like stickers, AI, even grabbing some of Snapchat's ideas. They messed with what was already so perfect and turned it into something else. That's why whenever I hear Microsoft is going to purchase something, I tense. But I won't get into a rant about them because it would span several paragraphs.
Like you said though, Skype was already dying. Most, if not all of my contacts, were offline, away, or just entirely gone. It's about time the plug was pulled honestly.
glad it's going
Hi,
It's funny because when I saw this post, I actually checked to see if I still had Skype on my phone but no. I obviously deleted it months ago. Don't even know when. The only reason I still use it on Windows occasionally is because a friend still uses it, and that's how we mostly communicate. The sound quality never improved, and the last couple of times I logged in, I was either added to random groups that I had to leave, or I had a load of chatbots in my contacts. Google Meet, Discord and FaceTime all have far superior sound quality. So my friend and I will have to find something else to use now, fine by me. Hopefully she'll install WhatsApp.
skype
I wasn’t a very big fan of Skype actually but it was good before. Recently I had the issue that I couldn’t hear the people I was talking to properly.
While it is sad to see it go I don’t feel any heartache for that at all. It just wasn’t my thing.
I used skype ages ago and it used to be great but in this current and last stage it isn’t all that great.
The end of Skype approaches,…
The end of Skype approaches, and yet, it is still receiving updates.
If something was going away, why even bother releasing updates.
I am glad for the switch to Teams
Believe it or not, I still have contacts on Skype I stay in touch with regularly. And yes, the latest versions on iOS and MacOS were frustrating, to put it mildly. So, I am glad that I am able to easily move my contacts over to the free tier of Teams. I can just ask them to download it and sign in with the same account.
For accessibility, Teams is also much better on iOS and iPadOS, because here, Microsoft still uses proper native controls, Braille Screen Input works fine, and it also doesn't repeat messages over and over.
On MacOS, Teams, though an Electron app like Skype, and with a different keyboard usage paradigm, is still good to use. Yes, it requires a bit of getting used to if you haven't used Teams before in a work or school environment, but it is working well.
Skype was a great product in its early days, it had one purpose and did it well. The problems started after suddenly, it was supposed to do more. Status updates, channels and such, which made the feature set scattered and bloated. This is always what happens with apps that lose their focus, for example after being bought by a big tech company. And the switch from native apps to Electron/ReactNative so they would write for all platforms, brought so many accessibility drawbacks that it was really disgusting.
Teams, at least for now, is still native on iOS and iPadOS, and only Electron on Windows and Mac, but it has been like that from the start. So hopefully, especially after the poor user experience in Skype, Microsoft will keep the iOS and iPadOS version native and therefore working well for us.
Yeah, I'd been using Skype since 2004, and am sorry to see this part of my history go, but since I can move the contacts I have there to Teams, I can at least keep them. Most don't want to use a messenger like WhatsApp, Signal, Threema or such. So it is good we still have something that works well.
Skype on Mac
I've been using Skype as my main messaging tool for work for the last few years, pretty much until now when I've started to switch to teams.
Skype is accessible enough. It has plenty of little issues, but on the whole I can easily get around, find recent chats, and have conversations and calls with moderate ease. The Skype app on the Mac is miles, miles better than the Teams app on the Mac. although I am finding that the teams web app is an improvement on both of them.
I don't think I ever used Skype on a phone.
I was initially pretty shocked about it closing because I had bad experiences of Teams and honestly couldn't be bothered to go through the learning curve all over again. But now I'm getting used to it, I couldn't care less either way. It does seem to be a bit of a relic now so hardly a big surprise that it has been canned.
If you need to, you can download all your messages and attachments - on the Mac it involves going to the account settings and then requesting one or both of them. You then have to wait a while for it to be available. So if you want this I'd do it sooner rather than later.
Strange how nothing in the Skype app tells you that it's closing. If i didn't follow tech news I probably wouldn't. know.
Dropouts on Skype
The guys at Dropouts did a funny video on the end of Skype.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0w_pwZY3E
Some cursing.
SkypeOut, Out
It's too bad, because SkypeOut was still useful, and competitive, despite their stupid and malicious practice of "expiring" your credit if it wasn't used.
But, yeah, in the end it was crap and has been ever since the great centralisation after MS acquired it and turned it into an insipid corporate tool rather than an awesome point-to-point VOiP app with messaging and file transfers. I still have fond memories of my Windows box slowing to an absolute crawl after it was chosen as a so-called "supernode", which was probably because that machine had a public IP address on the 'net and no firewall blocking the ports it used. Unfortunately I was on DSL at the time ... Ah, fun times.
But today's Skype? Nah, sod it and good riddance.
importing skype contacts to teams
I have Team on my phone aid Pad, but never was much of a user, mostly because all of my coworkers and friends either use Zoom or Whatsapp. The last time anyone in my circle used Teams on Windows they complained about issues Teams was having with Jaws.
Teams on the Mac feels ... odd. It's not unusable; it just that finding things takes some getting used to. How do I see my skype contacts with Teams?
Re: Import contacts
Hi,
After doing a little research on Google, I found a couple of options for you. According to the AI results that populate whenever we do a Google search these days, you can simply log into Teams with your Skype account, and both your contacts and chat conversations will automatically appear in Teams. Alternatively, you can import your Skype contacts through the Teams settings menu. Details in the link provided below.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sync-your-contacts-in-microsoft-teams-free-313a0ecd-6d3d-4645-9db2-92762be9618a