The iOS app has a disturbing 1.5-star average rating on the App Store, dropping from 4.5 stars before the update, and the very copious one-star reviews are pretty brutal. Google’s Play Store doesn’t reset average numbers every time an app gets an update, but current reviews for the Skype Android app are definitely not better. Skype users have also stayed pretty vocal on Microsoft’s Community website, and the post from user felixmayberry may give you a good sense of what this is all about:
My phone automatically updated to Skype 8 and… wow. This is the worst refresh I’ve possibly ever seen. It’s an uncanny mix between literal texting and a Snapchat rip-off now. I was using Skype for Skype, I didn’t need it to be The Newest Snapchat!
Removing the facility to be available and invisible was a bad decision. Eliminating the ability to turn off largely animated emojis was a bad decision. The formatting looks terrible. I can’t even press enter within a word anymore. If the Skype desktop is executed anywhere near as bad, I’m officially going to switch to Discord.
I mean, thoughtfully. I get that Snapchat is “cool with the teens” now. Although every app is now trying to copy their style accurately and it makes me want to use their apps less, not more.
Another Microsoft Answers poster, MexMer, features more of the missing functionality in the latest update:
not just ui is horible (on my fullHD 5″ i view only 1/3 of text, compared to the earlier version). they also removed functionality from the new version.
you can’t view who is online and who is not unless you enter a conversation with them.
you cannot open links in the browser (like chrome or firefox), you cannot attach files. a picture can be attached only from camera roll, not other albums in the gallery (that’s it, I can’t even send screenshots to friends).
you cannot save files to downloads or gdrive.
share to Skype is missing (when you for example want share URL from browser, or picture from your gallery, skype is not targeted).
and there is a lot more. i honestly can’t understand how they even decided to roll out this unfinished beta version
To be fair, Skype had swiftly fallen behind WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat in recent years, and Microsoft certainly had to do something to get its messaging app still relevant in the market. Unfortunately, Skype had gradually but surely become a niche messaging app, or an app for “prosumers.” Because of the legacy of the desktop, Skype still resembled like old-school IM clients such as Microsoft’s own MSN Messenger, and not quite like “mobile-first” messaging apps like WhatsApp, which does your phone number and address book to connect you with other users in a heartbeat.
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