{"id":40939,"date":"2020-05-27T15:13:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=1cfbe9495e8b313072183c1fa1233773"},"modified":"2020-05-27T15:13:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:13:43","slug":"skype-review-retrofitted-for-the-modern-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/skype-review-retrofitted-for-the-modern-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Skype review: Retrofitted for the modern age"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Keumars Afifi-Sabet<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
2 Jun, 2020<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe video conferencing OG boasts a clean in-meeting interface and most of the features you could ask for<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Price <\/div>\n
\n
Free<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\u200b<\/span>Given an\u00a0explosion of remote working<\/a>, with video conferencing thrust in the spotlight, we may have once expected Skype to seize the moment. After all, this is a platform that was eponymous with the concept of video communication not too long ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This titan of video conferencing has enjoyed something of a comeback in recent weeks, but it\u2019s been overshadowed by the emergence of Zoom and Google\u2019s own services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Times have indeed changed, and the platform has languished in the shadow of these competitors as well as Microsoft\u2019s enterprise-centric Teams service. There\u2019s no better symbol for this decline than Microsoft\u2019s decision to phase out Skype for Business.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the free version of Skype still plays a vital role for many small businesses. The platform has undergone a 70% surge in activity during the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to a 220% explosion in Skype-to-Skype calls. In a market now saturated with rivals, does the legacy service have the legs to keep itself relevant?<\/p>\n

Skype review:\u00a0Design and UI<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Skype\u2019s user interface (UI)<\/a> has undergone several overhauls through the years and, today, remains in keeping with Microsoft\u2019s bold \u2018fluent design\u2019 aesthetic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the platform adheres to these design principles well, its minimalist aspirations don\u2019t match up with how cluttered the interface is. On desktop, users are immediately met with a well-sized primary chat window to the right, beside a pale-toned sidebar into which most of the app\u2019s functions are squashed. By default, the oversized pane shows a welcome screen.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\" <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Using this smaller panel you can cycle between recent chats, recent calls, contacts, and recent notifications. The interface also includes a \u2018new call\u2019 and new chat\u2019 button as well as the recently launched \u2018meet now\u2019 feature. Double-clicking on any contact will beam your chat history to the right-hand panel. This mess of icons means it can prove fiddly to actually get to the function you need, so could have benefited from icons being spaced out more across the interface.<\/p>\n

Despite this clash, navigating to the \u2018Appearance\u2019 tab in the Settings menu gives users a decent array of cosmetic options, including a fabulous dark mode, a choice between several accent tones, and two high-contrast settings.<\/p>\n

Where the UI does excel is while dialled into a meeting. Only a handful of buttons remain on show, allowing participants to fill the remainder of the display. Advanced functions, instead of lining a portion of the screen, are hidden away in a \u2018more options\u2019 menu.<\/p>\n

Skype review:\u00a0Features and functionality<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Skype offers a full array of basic features as well as a handful of more advanced features that have found their way into Skype from other services over the years. These include screen sharing and a neat real-time transcription toggle.<\/p>\n

\u2018Meet now\u2019<\/a>, which allows users to send non-users a meeting link without them having to download the software, is an example of a feature that\u2019s only made its way into the service following the meteoric rise of Zoom<\/a> on the coattails of a similar feature. Putting aside the speculation as to why Skype\u2019s only just rolled out a similar feature, it\u2019s a welcome addition and boosts the user experience considerably.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\" <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The \u2018blur background\u2019 toggle, meanwhile, singles you out as the video subject effectively, while you can also add custom background images. Zoom goes one step further with a handful of preloaded images, and support for video, although lacks the blur background toggle – which is perhaps of more interest to business users than zany effects.<\/p>\n

Although Skype includes several advanced features, one can\u2019t help but feel limited by the way they\u2019ve been implemented.\u00a0 While meetings can be recorded, the files are hidden away in your chat \u2018gallery\u2019 and are only available for 30 days. Sure, they can be subsequently saved onto your hard drive, but what if you just wanted these files beamed straight into your PC? Other applications include functionality for that. Finally, while you can share your screen at the touch of a button, other video conferencing services allow participants to share a portion of the screen, an individual app or even a \u2018digital whiteboard\u2019.<\/p>\n

To its detriment, we did encounter a few glitches here and there. These manifested primarily as features taking a long time to work properly, and excessive menu loading-time. One fundamentally disruptive bug we encountered involved the live transcription feature in a meeting started using ‘Meet now’. When activated, the application crashed only a few seconds later, after several attempts. This was odd because on several separate occasions, however, it worked flawlessly.<\/p>\n

Skype review:\u00a0Video and meeting experience<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Alongside the lesser-known Lifesize, Skype is the only leading conferencing platform to offer 1080p video quality on its free tier, with Zoom and Hangouts limited to 720p. The maximum number of participants is also a strong 50, bested only by Zoom\u2019s limit of 100. The latter, however, is limited in the way that meetings disconnect after 40 minutes, whereas Skype offers unlimited free video conferencing.<\/p>\n

The main advantage Skype holds over its rivals is a clean UI while in meetings, to the extent it feels like a different app than that of the cluttered home screen. Meeting participants can be organised in several ways, but can only occupy a maximum of four large quadrants at any one time. Skype offers a neat way to work around this, with excess participants occupying small bubbles along the top which can be dragged into any quadrant to replace participants at any time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\"\" <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Most functions beyond the most basic are tucked away in an expandable folder in the bottom-right-hand corner of the interface. From here, users can record meetings, toggle subtitles, and perform other functions. The live transcription feature is neat too, with real-time dialogue generated in small text without obscuring anybody\u2019s face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Skype review:\u00a0Security provisions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

All Skype-to-Skype calls, messages and file transfers are encrypted, according to the developers, through 256-bit advanced encryption standard (AES) protection<\/a>. Should users wish to make calls to landlines, these conversations will take place over the standard public switched telephone network (PSTN) so won\u2019t enjoy the same level of protection.<\/p>\n

Instant messaging, meanwhile, is protected using transport-level security (TLS) which guards messages between the Skype client and the chat service in the platform\u2019s cloud, as well as AES when communications are sent between two Skype clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Voice messages are encrypted on delivery, however once they have been listened to, the files are transferred from Skype servers to users\u2019 local machines, where they are stored in an unencrypted format.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, there are a set of standard protections built-into the platform to protect user privacy including automatically screening calls or messages from individuals who aren\u2019t contacts. Users can also determine how long message history, chat titles, and videos will last before these are deleted. Files and voice messages as well as call recordings will be removed from the cloud after 30 days, although users can save them to their machines.<\/p>\n

Skype review:\u00a0Verdict<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While there\u2019s no doubting how far Skype has fallen in popularity from its peak around a decade ago, the most basic version of the legacy video conferencing suite still has plenty to offer new and existing users.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\"\" <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A host of basic features, strong security provisions and advanced tools like real-time transcription and the capacity to record meetings may indeed be enough to entice you away from increasingly popular alternatives. This is in addition to 1080p support, a healthy maximum participant cap, and no meeting time limit, if you\u2019re willing to stomach a couple of minor glitches here and there.<\/p>\n

Although a couple of these advanced features might fall short in places, there\u2019s plenty to shout about. The eleventh-hour addition of a \u2018meet now\u2019 feature, too, means the classic version of Skype has been sufficiently retrofitted for the modern age. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keumars Afifi-Sabet<\/p>\n

2 Jun, 2020
\nThe video conferencing OG boasts a clean in-meeting interface and most of the features you could ask for<\/p>\n

Price <\/p>\n

Free
\n \u200bGiven an\u00a0explosion of r…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40940,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40939\/revisions\/40940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}