Skype app has recently received a major UI and features update. Unfortunately, the features added are barely original. It seems Skype hopped on the Snap Chat cloning bandwagon too.
Let’s start with the UI changes. The app now has 3 main tabs. The center one is labeled “Chat” and as the name suggests, it’s the central place for all your conversation lists with friends.
The tab on the left is labeled “Highlights” its a rip off of Snap Chat stories A.K.A WhatsApp’s “My Status” feature. All your pics and videos of the day are posted here for your friends to see. The functionality is very similar to the original Snap Chat stories feature.
The last tab is called capture. This is where the user can take photos and videos for sending to friends or simply adding them to the highlights feed. This tab also gets ‘inspiration’ from Snap Chat in the form of stickers and drawings.
Apart from the tabs, the new Skype has a ‘Find panel’, its a central place to use bots to get information on different topics. For instance, Expedia bot will get you information on traveling, BigOven will do the same on food recipes. Bots have been the trend lately, we are glad to see Skype adopting them, Telegram already did and they are getting a lot of traction.
Currently this Skype update is only available on Android. Other platforms such as Apple iOS will get them soon. Windows Phone won’t be so lucky since Microsoft just announced it will be retiring Skype on that platform. It is quite ironic considering that Microsoft owns Skype and it is not providing it in its mobile OS, but reports suggest that the company couldn’t justify spending more resources on that dying platform.