Skype’s radical new mobile interface isn’t going over well with longtime users.
As The Verge points out, Skype has seen its App Store rating plummet since the company released the latest version of its iOS app. On the Canadian iTunes App Store, the popular chat app currently has a one-and-a-half star rating on 450 reviews. Canadians aren’t the only group of people upset with Microsoft over its newest take on Skype either. In recent weeks, users across the globe have flooded the chat app’s store page with negative reviews.
One Canadian user, A. Durian, writes, “Skype has always been powerful and innovative, always a step ahead of ahead of everyone else, but this is just… not right. If I wanted to use Snapchat I would use Snapchat, not Skype.”
Android users are similarly distraught over the design, and they’ve had to endure it for a longer period of time. One particularly concise review says, “the new version is exceptionally bad. Cluttered, lacks status control, full of stupid additions. It is almost incredible how badly designed it is.”
A sort of fatal curiosity pushed me to downloaded the updated app myself. If you’re a frequent Skype user, I can see how this latest design would feel like a major step back in terms of usability. Similar to Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, two new ‘Highlights’ and ‘Capture’ sections invite users to document their day using images and photos. Similarly, like those apps, users can add emoji and drawings to their images and videos.
By itself, the Highlights feature is not egregious, but if you depend on Skype to communicate with friends and family members in far away places, then you’re probably asking why Microsoft felt the need to include this feature, especially at the expense of old Skype standbys like status indicators.
Moving forward, it appears Microsoft has two choices. The company can either roll back this design or attempt to push forward with it. In either case, the company will have to act quickly; if they continue to be unhappy, it’s not like Skype users face a dearth of choices when it comes to competing chat apps.
Have you been using the redesigned Skype app? What are your gripes with it? Tell us in the comment section.
Via: The Verge
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