Skype for Windows Phone Beta – Great GUI, But Serious Problems

Yesterday Microsoft finally announced the release of the Beta version of Skype for Windows Phone. The new app will make Skype available on almost all leading operating systems for mobile smart phones. As Skype has around 200 million users this is welcome news.

Chats are important to kalmstrom.com
Skype for Windows Phone Beta supports common Skype features like audio and video calls and the one-to-one and group chats that are so important to kalmstrom.com Business Solutions. As our team members are geographically dispersed, we use Skype chats to communicate quickly and safely via our PCs. It would be convenient if we could do the same on our smart phones.

Skype on Windows Phone 7.5
kalmstrom.com Lead Developer Jayant Rimza uses a Windows Phone 7.5, which is the latest version with the Metro interface. He has been waiting long for a possibility to use Skype with his Phone, so yesterday he was eager to test it. His first impression was good. The graphical user interface is awesome and Skype is very easy to operate on the Phone.

Test chat
I chatted with Jayant yesterday evening, and on my PC it looked fine. I could not see when Jayant was writing, though, and that was a bit annoying as I did not know if there was more to come from his side.

Jayant complained that he could not see my replies while he was typing in horizontal mode. He had to change into vertical again to see them.

He also had hoped that the spell check of the Phone key pad would work well with the Skype chat, as it does with other apps. Unfortunately it does not, and I can understand that. Not even Skype for PC has a spell checker for the chat – which sometimes leads to crazy misunderstandings when team members write too quickly!

Another problem was that Jayant could not see what contacts were online in his Phone. He had to select each person to see the status, which of course is a time consuming task. We want to see that at a glance, as we are used to do on our computers.

Problems list
The issues Jayant experienced are not included in the list of known problems in Skype for Windows Phone that Skype has published. As this is a Beta version we do expect some trouble, and it is a good idea to let users know what problems the developers are aware of. For some of them a workaround is given, but for most we can only hope that they will be solved quickly.

Only foreground capacity
Jayant and I agree that one of the problems mentioned in the list is devastating: the Beta version cannot run in the background. This means that it is impossible to receive chat messages and calls if Skype is not in foreground, so in reality you can only use Skype for calls and chats you initiate yourself. This is a serious drawback that makes the app nearly useless, so we really hope this will be fixed before the release of the gold version in April. As it is now I am not sure Skype for Windows Phone should even be called a Beta when such an important feature is not there. Maybe this release came to soon after all?

kalmstrom.com Comments On Windows 8

Last week Microsoft released a pre-beta, developer preview version of Windows 8, their new combined desktop, laptop and tablet operating system. Since then the kalmstrom.com team has been testing it, and I want to share some of our first thoughts and impressions with you. I will surely have reason to come back to Windows 8 many times.

Windows 8 is like a new dish ‒ some will be impressed by it and some not. Users who expected just an update of Windows 7 will be very surprised, and in the beginning maybe also frustrated by everything new. I hope they will come over it soon, because overall this is an intriguing change. Or as one of the kalmstrom.com technicians expressed it: "If you don't like Windows 8, then you don't like tech."

What first strikes you when you open Windows 8 is the totally new interface. Microsoft has hidden the traditional windows and instead given us a tile interface like in their mobile phones. The Start bar, which has been there in all earlier Windows versions, is removed and replaced with icons of each installed application. This tile layout is called "Metro", and it is optimized for touch as well as mouse and keyboard.

The Metro interface is meant to make it easy to have several applications open at the same time, not only on a desktop but also in a smart phone. Swiping from the left switches to the next app, but you can also swipe and drag to put several apps on a screen side by side, in the size that you want them. If you need to have many applications open it might be difficult to find them with this system, as you cannot scroll down the Start bar as before. However, since you can move application tiles in the interface and place them where you want them, you can create groups that will make it easier to find applications.

We all like the Windows Explorer in version 8. It has a ribbon interface, like Office 2010, where most of the common tasks are at your fingertips. It also has a backstage view with many useful options.

Now the team is looking forward to testing Windows 8 further once new computers with really good touch-screens come on the market. Microsoft and their hardware partners have been lagging behind Apple for quite a while, but we don´t believe that trend is going to keep. It will be very interesting to see what Microsoft will do together with Nokia, Samsung, Acer, Intel, Dell, Sony and others.

The next 9-12 months should see some exciting development both on the mobile and the PC markets, and the kalmstrom.com team members are glad to be part of it!