160 People: Skype 5 for Mac = Fail. Skype: No Comment

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=756073

by jv22222 • 15 years ago

62 52 15 years ago

forum.skype.com

Kylekramer• 15 years ago

If companies dropped everything when a handful of people whined about an interface change in an application, website, or anything of the like, there would never be any updates. This isn't a ringing endorsement of Skype 5 for Mac, but companies can't be held hostage by a few people who don't like change.

jv222223• 15 years ago

That thread was going since before the official release when in beta phase. Presumably the idea of beta testers is to help shape a better product?

knowtheory2• 15 years ago

Sure, but what you get out of the process can vary widely. Enough bitching from users on a minority platform can cause companies to outright drop that platform (not that i think that's likely in this case). Other people only listen to the positive feedback (which can be useful).

But the outrageous tantrums being thrown on this thread are just ridiculous and counter productive. I doubt they were even cathartic from the poster's end.

trustfundbaby• 15 years ago

So do you just conflate all criticism into the 'whining' bucket?

A lot of people on that thread were very specific in their feedback. Both pointing out their grouses and what could be done to fix them, so I disagree with your unkind characterization that they were just a 'few people who don't like change'

The least Skype could have done was post a simple

"Thank you for the posts, we are evaluating all your feedback"

Too much to ask?

bruceboughton• 15 years ago

I suspect Kylekramer is reacting to the inflammatory HN headline.

iconfinder• 15 years ago

Yeah, just like Digg didn't listen to their users.

knowtheory2• 15 years ago

The push to talk functionality really is handy though. That was the reason i installed the beta. I did reach a point about 2 weeks ago where the benefit of push to talk was outweighed by the extremely shoddy UI, specifically with regard to window focus.

Thankfully the newest beta makes sure that when you flip back to Skype the text input is always the active UI element in your chat (as opposed to the title for whatever god awful reason).

The UI still takes up a huge amount of space, but it is at least usable now.

Not being able to tear video out into a separate window is still very frustrating however.

comron• 15 years ago

Not being able to tear out video, or even worse a screen sharing session is very frustrating. Screen sharing someone's 1920px wide screen in half of the Skype window makes screen sharing unusable.

wyuenho• 15 years ago

As much as I would like to embrace change, Skype 5 for Mac is not change I can believe in. Besides the usual complain of everything being too big, I fail to see what a COMPLETE redo of the UI has anything valuable (read significant enough for a drastic total change) to offer me.

First of all, what does the barely 3d cover-flow view of my contacts suppose to help me with? Even if I maximize it to screen-size, I can only see 9 contacts (1 fully, 8 partially) at once, and they are all resampling of Icons of what 128x128 pixels? Form and function FAIL.

Second, what happened to conversation history? If I click show 6 months, I can't go back to show 1 day. Dead end workflows are always awkward.

Lastly, why in the world is there so much spacing? There's like 100px of completely blank paddings everywhere. The icons and fonts are already ginormous. Making the window so much bigger doesn't make me more likely to use it.

The UI design makes no sense whatsoever. It must have been done by an automatic random UI design decision maker.

micampe2• 15 years ago

> The UI design makes no sense whatsoever. It must have been done by an automatic random UI design decision maker.

Disagree. The UI reflects how I've seen most people use Skype (and other IM applications, iChat, Adium, MSN, …): always keep the conversation window open with all the contacts you usually chat with; ignore the contacts list.

mableflapster• 15 years ago

I normally agree with you, but this is such a drastic change for the worse. I was excited about the new features, but so turned off by the UI, I downgraded. There will be more negative feedback once it is out of Beta, assuming they don't make drastic changes.

andrewcurioso5• 15 years ago

It is out of beta. And no, they didn't make an drastic changes.

alanh• 15 years ago

This isn’t a Facebook redesign or even #NewTwitter — the latter was overwhelmingly welcomed but of course some holdouts criticize all change.

With Skype 5 for Mac, I haven’t heard a single soul say anything positive about it.

micampe2• 15 years ago

Here's the first one, then. It has some flaws, but I think the new UI is an improvement. And definitely it has been for my mom. Her reaction: "This is so much easier, I didn't understand what the other window was for."

siddhant• 15 years ago

This is change of the bad kind. The interface looks horrible, to say the least. I had hopes that they'll stop burning the CPU fans in Skype 5, but apparently it has gotten worse. It baffles me everytime I see the CPU usage spiking up like crazy whenever I do a video call.

Skype is an indispensable tool for a lot of people, including me. All I want is it to get better. But Skype 5 doesn't really look like a step in that direction.

eykanal• 15 years ago

I agree with you; tech companies with few enough staff as is can't respond to every complaint.

However, note that the first post in that thread was Nov 4, 2010. That's over three months ago. By this time, they definitely should have at least posted something indicating they've heard the user response.

cowmixtoo• 15 years ago

Oh no.. universally, everyone thinks Skype 5 is a total cluster f.

zmitri• 15 years ago

To be fair, they did address some of these concerns in the latest update of 5. The text is smaller and spacing is much tighter. Definitely an improvement. My biggest concern is that 5 doesn't allow flash apps to access your web cam when it's running.

Hates_• 15 years ago

Reads exactly how much Facebook wall sounds when Facebook update their UI. The temptation is always to listen to your most vocal unhappy customers while the vast majority carry on happy.

gte910h• 15 years ago

Yeah, it's just not a well organized program IMO. It likely needs an expensive UI consultant and an expensive redo of many screens to really handle the 3-4 ways people work with it.

There are the Eurobusiness people who live in it, the Eurobusiness people who live work and play in it, the casual users who use it for the occasional phone call, the teens who use it as a substitute for AIM and everyone else from what I can see. Basically, they're trying to compromise on that, and not doing a great job.

swombat• 15 years ago

160? Every time Facebook changes something they get a million people signing a petition and vowing to quit if Facebook doesn't change it back.

JacobAldridge• 15 years ago

I wonder what Valuation Facebook would have it it were Mac only?

I actually agree with your point, but comparing Facebook users (fraction of 500 million) to Skype for Mac users (unknown to me, but I would suggest less) is not a straight comparison.

petsos2• 15 years ago

It is also much easier to complain about Facebook in Facebook that to find the right forum in skype.com and post something there.

andrewcurioso5• 15 years ago

There are a couple comments here saying that software developers shouldn't bend to the will of a vocal minority that doesn't like change. I completely agree.

However, this is not the case here. I use Skype daily for business and I can say that not a single person that I know who upgraded likes the changes. That isn't a few squeaky wheels.

Granted 20 people isn's statisticly significant, but when it is hated by 20 people in a sample size of 20 you have to wonder a bit.

I'm sure a lot of people love it; but I'm not one.

alxp• 15 years ago

I like it. Automatically having a group chat when you make a call with multiple people, and saving group chats in your history are the two things that have kept me using the Skype 5 and not downgrading. And now that the focus problem when app switching bug is fixed I really don't have any major problems with it.

andrewcurioso5• 15 years ago

So there's one person! ;)

I haven't downgraded either, I keep thinking that I'll get used to it and it will get better.

ddemchuk2• 15 years ago

doesn't skype have like 10 million users online at any given time? 160 upset people is like dropping salt into the ocean.

calloc• 15 years ago

Well, there's only like 300 Mac users ;-) That's more than half!

All joking aside, a lot of Mac users are just sticking to the older 2.x series for their Skype client rather than upgrading, so if a 160 people decided it was worth their time to complain on the Skype forums there are probably many more!

ddemchuk2• 15 years ago

true, good point. I upgraded to the beta when it came out a while back on my 13" air and I'm perfectly fine with the sizing. The new update made things even smaller/better. I run my Skype on a different Spaces section though so screen real estate isn't an issue for me.

pluies• 15 years ago

160 people upset enough to complain on the forums.

jarin• 15 years ago

I'm usually pretty receptive of major UI changes, but I hate Skype's new UI. It's hard to find contacts, it's weird how everything is piled into this giant window, and it took me 5 minutes to find the dial pad.

andrewcurioso5• 15 years ago

I agree completely. I actually had to re-dial into a conference line the first time I used it because it took me too long to find the dial pad to type in my pin.

5teev• 15 years ago

Adium betas? Probably. Skype betas? No, don't think so.

I've heard only deep regret from friends who tried the new Skype for Mac.

andrewcurioso5• 15 years ago

Same here, I've heard (almost) entirely criticism. Plus, I am a paid Skype customer. It is a little different when you're using a free app like Adium or a free website like Facebook or Digg.

jv222223• 15 years ago

Out of curiosity have you used Skype version 5 on a Mac? What do you think of it?

petsos2• 15 years ago

I hate it. In a decreasing level of importance:

- I hate that they removed the contact list. There is an online contacts window, but it stays always on top and can't view/change your status from there.

- You can't pop a video call window out. This is insane, you can't video chat with someone and text chat with some one else at the same time. Screen sharing is almost unusable. This is actually reduced functionality compared to 2.x.

- There is empty space everywhere.

- It feels like they are pushing you to buy stuff everywhere.

mydigitalself2• 15 years ago

So let's just think about this for a moment.

When Facebook introduced the Feed back in 2006, hundreds of thousands of people protest. Hundreds of thousands. They even had a physical protest outside on their lawn. I think many of you will agree, The Feed is Facebook.

Then they made some other tweaks in 2009 with Top News and MILLIONS of people protested in groups.

Need I talk about Apple and floppy drives?

To date, there are 397 people protesting on http://www.facebook.com/betterSkype5

You can't please everyone all the time at scale.

jv222223• 15 years ago

Facebook is a social network that makes it easy for people to group together and complain about the thing they are using.

For someone to complain about the Skype UI it is much harder, they would actually have to seek out a forum and register with the forum.

So 397 folks actively seeking out and registering + 160 registering to Skype's own forum does say something, no?

I wonder how many people really don't like it, but are living with it because they can't be bothered to seek out and register to complain!

mydigitalself2• 15 years ago

The Facebook page has the same viral effect (if you Like it, it will show up to all of your friends). So don't buy that.

Was just skimming back through the forum link again, about 50% of the comments appear to be new forum users. So some validity in that I guess. Although, have you ever registered on a forum to say you like something or is it normally a complaint/wanting to be heard.

mbesto2• 15 years ago

Reminds of digg v4...unfortunately in this case people do pay for Skype's service. I, being one of them. I will not be upgrading my client anytime soon.

igorgue• 15 years ago

It still makes calls right? It's not like the software doesn't work; It does and better than most solutions.

I like multi-video-chat so I can bare with the ugly interface.

mbesto2• 15 years ago

True, but so does my telephone. The reason reddit wins is because the experience is better there. Since this is a B2B (in my case) model I consider this a regression in the solution I'm paying for. Luckily I have the option to not upgrade.

mahmud• 15 years ago

Ignoring people is the new black: Skype is pulling a Mubarak.

http://twitter.com/BigThingist/statuses/35031167392686080

whalesalad• 15 years ago

I don't personally know anyone who dislikes Skype 5 for Mac. I love it. There are complainers in this world, but indeed as most have described this is a drop in the ocean of Mac Skype users. I can count at least 4 people who love it, and no one has told me they dislike it.

Semiapies• 15 years ago

Link is to a complaint thread starting early last November about the now-ended Beta.

The most recent posts appear to be me-toos along the lines of "What was wrong with the simple 2.8 Skype UI - NOTHING ! it was just too old and needed some new futures[sic]."

marksands07• 15 years ago

I, for one, like the new Skype. I think they did a great job with the redesign. Surely I'm not the only one who thinks this.

trebor• 15 years ago

I couldn't stand the old Skype for Mac. Were it not for the fact that I prefer Skype to all other instant messaging services, I would have ditched Skype long ago.

six70one• 15 years ago

I do enjoy the new layout. The "iChat/AIM/ICQ" UI paradigm was due to be re-invented eventually. I think the only thing that is really missing is the "full-screen" video. Either that or I just haven't found where they hid the button...

marcc• 15 years ago

I just installed it and my initial impression is that a lot of work went into this new UI, and it's not bad. I think it could use a few changes, but I'm not complaining. Personally, I don't like how big all of the windows are, the fact that I haven't figured out a way to hide the contact sidebar, and when I open the Contacts Monitor window (command + 3), it uses a large font which can't be resized. To someone who uses Skype frequently, this might be nice. Maybe I'm not the typical use case, I generally use Skype as IM or voice only and not that often, but I like to keep it running all of the time. Now I will, but I'll keep it running hidden or in the dock, not on the screen.

grandalf• 15 years ago

It works fine for me.

nathanb• 15 years ago

Skype have completely ignored Linux users for years now. That their attitude toward Mac users is similar doesn't come as a big surprise.

160 People: Skype 5 for Mac = Fail. Skype: No Comment

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