

Skype for Mac 5.0 beta released - jipumarino
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/macosx/beta/

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blacksquare
Yikes. What I liked about the previous version of skype was the relatively
streamlined real estate. This version looks like a suburban mini mansion. On
my macbook the new layout takes up half of the screen. Normally this would not
be a problem if you can actually change the settings, font size, styling, or
something. Haven't found out how to do that yet.

Rule of thumb for designers: Whitespace is your friend. But using it doesn't
guarantee that your interface will be better.

~~~
roder
I really think they got the right idea by making it look more "mac"
window/finder like....

But they totally missed the mark by putting so much white space and padding
around everything.

The minimal size I can shrink the window to is still >=33% of my 20" monitor,
even with "Compact Sidebar" and smaller font.

They really should have studied the Mac OS user interface a bit more before
releasing this. It seems like they fell into the whole lots of white-space and
big font web-design trends...

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mhd
I think they new interface isn't the "online contacts" sidebar anymore,
they've got a separate HUD view for that now (sidebar -> small icon next to
"CONTACTS"). If you use that for starting conversations and hide the main
window, it's actually somewhat usable. Would be better if there were an option
to hide the silly avatar pictures there, too.

Edit: Just noticed that the HUD window is always on top. Dang. Let's see if
that Adium plugin is still in development…

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coffeejunk
+group chat

-cpu still an issue -new groups ordering is somewhat confusing. i don't want a ridiculously big window listing all my online contacts with WAY to much whitespace around. i want my groups :( -hud contact list is always on top, that is seriously annoying -the hud window gives no feedback/options to me (except double clicking, which opens the other BIG window with the chat) -the cover flow contact list is just.. and the list goes on

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kilian
Windows: 5.0, Mac: 5.0, Linux: 2.1

I understand putting Mac and Windows versions before Linux versions, but a 3
version difference is starting to get ridiculous. Skype for Linux 2.1 is
perfectly usable (apart from sometimes forgetting all settings), but getting
it up to the level of it's cross-platform brothers would be nice. Skype has
been teasing "something" for Linux for like a year now, so I wonder what
happened to that.

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chmullig
Yesterday the mac version was 2.8, so I think that's a bit of hyperbole.

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kilian
Version number aside, the difference in the offered functionality between mac
2.8 and linux 2.1 was considerable as well. I was merely using the version
numbers to point out the difference in offered functionality.

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kyro
Coverflow for your contacts seems a bit superfluous.

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jgrahamc
Nice, but I've had consistently bad experiences with calls on Skype. Over the
years (including at the current time) I constantly get situations where
Skype's connection freezes or drops or the audio becomes unacceptable.

<http://blog.jgc.org/2010/09/if-only-skype-worked.html>

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mikeryan
Ironically I use skype at home (very painlessly) for most of my calls since
AT&T's coverage for my cell is way, way worse. YMMV of course.

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rayboyd
This was very uncomfortable to use. It does not feel right, it looks like a
poor knock off of Finder, it immediately interrupted my work-flow and sat
uncomfortably on my screen (24" on spaces and a 22" secondary; I am not short
on screen space).

I reinstalled the old version after about 30 minutes of use. Horrible.

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rbxbx
Group video chat!

One less reason to use iChat. Phew.

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dtf
Yes, but it sounds like they're planning on charging for it!

 _Start your _free trial_ for group video calling beta_

 __one-to-one_ video calls and instant messaging are free_

~~~
webXL
I just scoured the internet to find out about pricing. Nada. Apparently the
media covering this new feature didn't think their readers would care about
this enough to even add "No word on pricing yet"

I'd imagine Skype is probably surveying beta users on a fair price.

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sahillavingia
Warning: excessive whitespace abounds.

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yread
I wish they would rather solve the ridiculous memory footprint of skype in
windows. The other day it had 300M private bytes

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sidmitra
I wish they would work on their linux client too

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RBr
Without Canadian Skype in phone numbers, this still isn't a must-need
application for 33 million folks.

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BigCanOfTuna
Seriously? Of the 33 million Canadians: How many know what Skype is. Of those
that do, how many know what a Skype-in number is? Of those, how many care if
they have a Skype-in number?

Admittedly, the number is pulled out of a hat, but I would guess maybe 5000
Canadians.

~~~
RBr
We're very advanced people :)

Ok - sure, you're right - 33 million is a bit drastic... however, consider
this:

In 2009, 74.9% of Canada's population had access to the Internet. Our
population is spread out across the second largest land mass in the world. Our
local laws (and the evil CRTC) allow telecom monopolies to exist and maintain
exceptionally high monthly rates. In some parts of our otherwise great nation,
calling across the street incurs long distance charges.

VoIP let a lone a service with all of Skype's features could make a very
serious impact.

With these things in mind 33 million may be a stretch... but the potential
number of Skype In users far exceeds 5000.

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liamkf
I think part of the reason Skype hasn't done Skype In for Canada is due to
some of the requirements the CRTC puts on telecoms here (there's some
rigmarole to do with 911 and municipal taxes). I'm guessing the regulatory
hassles aren't quite worth it yet for them.

It is too bad they don't have it though. I would have preferred Skype In over
Vonage when I was looking for a home phone a few years ago.

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kennu
I find it hard to support a closed communications system like Skype that makes
it impossible for third parties to develop client applications. I also don't
trust the encryption since it's all closed.

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swah
If only they would solve the CPU hog problem... I open one Skype video chat
and the MBP gets hot, fans start to work at full speed, etc. That doesn't
happen on my Windows laptops.

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dylanz
I'm hoping a later revision has more "View" options. The whitespace and
general padding on the contacts as well as the chats is pretty bad.

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bcardarella
I have no idea what the Windows version looks like but the Mac version looks
like crap. Why is it taking up half my screen?

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blahpro
Is it possible to make video full–screen in this version of Skype? I can’t for
the life of me figure out how.

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mcs
H.323 baby!

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sleight42
One word: AVOID

