Universal Skype app exits preview, but is it really ready for prime time?

I was a huge fan of Messaging Everywhere on Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. It was simple, clean and incredibly fast. And it was built right into the universal Messaging app, which I adore to this day for it's clean, minimalistic look. So when Microsoft announced it was killing Messaging Everywhere in favor of Skype SMS Relay, I was sad. Very sad.

However, I convinced myself that maybe Skype would do it well. So after waiting a long time for SMS Relay to show up in the Skype universal app, I was disappointed by how slow, ugly and unfinished the app was. But it was still in preview, so it wasn't really fair to judge.

Now the universal Skype app is no longer in preview, and I decided to try it again. I switched my default SMS client from the Messaging app to Skype, and I set up my desktop and laptop for SMS relay with my phone. The set-up process was easy enough. You just enable SMS Relay and then type in a security passcode on the device you want to relay from.

Has Skype really improved?

My original gripes with the Skype Preview app had to do with sluggish performance, terrible contact and conversation management, and most importantly, unreliable SMS relaying.

Let's dive into the sluggish performance issue first. With the Skype app coming out of preview, the performance has improved. However, it's not as fast as I'd like it to be, and it's definitely not as fast as the original Messaging app with Messaging Everywhere. No matter how you put it, the Skype app is still slower than the Messaging app.

I know the Skype app has a lot more to deal with than the Messaging app, but that's not the point. Microsoft wants me to use the Skype app for SMS Relay instead of the much faster Messaging app. If the company wants me to use Skype, at least make it as fast as the older system first. I'm still not impressed with how slow the Skype app is. I know many people don't care, especially with Actionable Notifications, but I do. I want it to be, at minimum, the same speed as the Messaging app.

Moving onto contact and conversation management. Skype Preview was an absolute dog when it came to managing contacts and conversations. More often than not, I'd find duplicate contacts in my Skype contacts list because the app didn't know how to merge contacts with the same number. That meant you'd usually find two conversations for the same person, one with Skype messages and one with SMS messages. It was a mess. I'm pleased that with the Skype app exiting preview, these issues have been mostly mended.

Apart from one time where it returned (briefly), I've had no issues with contact management or conversation duplicates with the Skype app. Skype seems to now understand that you might already have a contact in your address book, and instead of duplicating, it merges them instead. That's a nice touch.

Finally, SMS relay reliability. When in preview, Skype failed to send an SMS from my PC or laptop around 40 percent of the time. With the app now out of preview, I've yet to see the app fail to send an SMS. I'm super impressed with how much more reliable SMS is now, and I'm very happy to see it has improved.

Skype as my main messaging app?

So will I be using the universal Skype app for my SMS needs from now on? No. While there have been some great improvements it's still not perfect. For one, the UI is rubbish and looks entirely unfinished. I like the clean minimalistic look of the Messaging app.

Above all, the Skype app is still slow compared to the Messaging app. I like being able to jump into the Messaging app and start a conversation incredibly quickly. With Skype, it takes a few seconds longer. Hopefully this will be improved in upcoming releases.

What do you think? Does the universal Skype app deserve to be out of preview? Do you use it as your main messaging app?

Zac Bowden is a Senior Editor at Windows Central. Bringing you exclusive coverage into the world of Windows on PCs, tablets, phones, and more. Also an avid collector of rare Microsoft prototype devices! Keep in touch on Twitter: @zacbowden.

134 Comments

Skype uwp is a real mess.
Yeah, it even lacks sorting contacts by online status.. It's a pain in scrolling through 150+ of them just to check are certain people online.
You know 150+ people that actually use Skype? I use it to talk to two people lol, in fairness though they are 2 people I chat to a lot but still...
I think the term you're looking for is HAM.
Where it works, it works. But where it doesn't... yeah. I have to use notification mirroring from my phone to get Skype notifications because Skype doesn't natively show any on the PC. That's just bad.
It definitely doesn't have the cleanest UI out there. I really dislike the UI when creating a new message. Why does it pop out from the right?? And why can't I select which type of message I want to send (SMS via relay, SMS via Skype OR Skype message)? The biggest advantage of building SMS relay into the Skype app is that in would in theory make it possible to relay messages from Skype on iOS and Android as well. This hasn't happened yet, but it needs to. I am a happy user of MySMS on Android as well and really like that I am able to read and send SMS'es from all platforms through my Android phone - well, except from my Windows phone, but other than that... I am hoping that Microsoft will open up so that we can put other apps instead of Skype as the default app for SMS - for instance MySMS.
Also chats still don't delete. You can't remove people from your contacts too.
The only issue I have with SMS relay is when my device is locked and screen is off. The PC app will state the SMS is "sending...". Sometimes it will send, other times it will not. And when it actually does send, the PC app still shows "sending..." until I wake my phone and launch the Skype app. Then it could say "sent" or "failed, try again". Otherwise, reliability has significantly improved IMO across the board, including the Xbox One app.
This. SMS relay is only consistent when you freshly booted up skype on PC and Mobile, with no sleeps or screen offs. Otherwise, sending the first text can be a pain. Once it connects, it's 99% successful.
I'm pretty sure the messaging app and a few others are more integrated into the OS on Mobile. Skype is just an app running like any other and I think that is part of why there is a big performance issue. Messaging has no splash screen like any normal store app such as Skype does. I think at least part of it is the messaging app being either pre-loaded or loaded into memory and kept there even when it's not running.
Messaging is just super lightweight. If you don't provide a splash screen for your UWP app and actually care about start up performance, you can easily make your app start as quickly as Messaging (I've done it myself). Skype just does far too much on startup.
Messaging in Windows phone 8 used to be hard coded into the mobile OS, but now Microsoft moved it to just a regular app that can be updated without needing to update firmware. The Messaging app is just written cleaner, and faster. It has the same limitations as the skype app
I think I gave Skype with its SMS relay a fair chance. That said I no longer use it because of contact and reliability issues. I'll wait for the sequel. Maybe the second.
mmm apart from SMS issue that everyone reports, I have another issue with the camera focus in Skype UWP app. My whole family owns Lumia devices (bummer for us) and it happens with all of us and on PCs as well. The camera goes out of focus, zooms in without any reason and acts funny. I mean I can not even explain how tough it is when I talk to my mom on Skype. I can understand, she is already going through a lot of trouble understandng everything in Skype (when she doesn't speak English and I have set up things in Hindi on her phone and tablet) and then the camera acts funny and I have to just tell her to cope up with that. And we all know tech training for parents can be really tough...
Feel your pain bro.
Yeah, its really a pain. What I'm bothered with is how company such as Microsoft can even let this past from their QA? (if that still even exist) Polish, optimization and completing a similar feature-set are things that they seem to not care. They don't set a high standards to themselves to release things a very high quality and great user experience that people will enjoy, not just their loyal fanboys. Because of this, even other developers such as Facebook also treating Windows users similarly, but worse. Microsoft doesn't set a good example, not all the time but still very inconsistent. Camera app for example is still a huge clusterf**k that I tend to miss first photos because it didn't manage to save it. I've never experience such a similar issue even a crap Android low-end. The camera reliability is the worst.
Yeah, its really a pain. What I'm bothered with is how company such as Microsoft can even let this past from their QA? (if that still even exist) Polish, optimization and completing a similar feature-set are things that they seem to not care. They don't set a high standards to themselves to release things a very high quality and great user experience that people will enjoy, not just their loyal fanboys. Because of this, even other developers such as Facebook also treating Windows users similarly, but worse. Microsoft doesn't set a good example, not all the time but still very inconsistent.
This thing still sucks but I must use it for now as skype is the only way to chat with my wife while I'm at work.
Using Skype for SMS never made sense to me. SMS is for SMS, Skype should have been integrated into existing channels instead of creating an new Skype experience and trying to make people switch to it.
Using Skype for SMS allows you to send texts from your PC. That's the goal
Yes this portion of it works very well for me
Thing is, that was the first thing they tried, and it failed. Hard. It just resulted in a really half-baked experience compared to the actual Skype app. Better for the man to ride the horse than for the horse to ride the man.
Can't fault your conclusion! It's slow, lots of conversation duplicates when the same group call each other regularly. Ever tried having an Xbox Skype call (ha ha ha - it rings my phone and desktop(s) - all blaring away.. But, does the Xbox ring? Does it f**k!)? Message sync is NOW FIXED in Messaging App (though not on any release changelogs?)... Still broken in Skype.
On brighter side: not experienced any SMS relay issues :-)
I thought it was pretty amusing when it said my Xbox One was requesting to be a synced device for SMS relay too. I'll keep it to my Lumia and Surface Pro for now, but I like the idea that this can sync across all Windows 10 devices in the future (come on, HoloLens).
SMS relay works great for me but I agree there are general issues and it can never be too fast. I have noticed the thing where it shows the same contact twice in the list when they were linked fine a day ago. Sometimes it shows the same copies of the person on Skype, both with the same conversations etc. But different profile pics.
I like it a lot and use it every day.
I've not used the old desktop app for a long, long time and prefer the UWP
Same. I feel like version 11.13 is an entirely different experience from 11.6.
I've been using Skype as my main SMS messaging app for a few months now. Like you said, it's defnitely not nearly as fast as the default messaging app. Once you go all in though, it does become less noticable. For me, being able to text using my pc is just far more important. Hopefully they can bring the speed up, aswell as better live tile support in the future!
I use it every day too and have for a while. Just earlier I did have a "it shouldn't take this long to open an SMS message from the notification" earlier today. Sometimes its pretty quick, other times I get a blank screen for a while after tapping the notification. Once I put creators update on my main phone (only got it on test device right now) I will probably reset my phone and see how things go
I was really trying to use it on daily base but it's a mess :-(
Agreed. Not ready at all...
Does the Skype app give reliable live tile notifications yet? Does it show how many messages and who sent a message?
no..
It shows a number at least instead of the star icon. It shows the number of conversations that have an unread message, rather than the number of total unread messages. Also does not show any text of the message or info on who its from.
At least it's not just the star icon now. Thanks!
I've had the opposite experience with it but only been using it about a month now. It's only doubled up conversations twice but it would merge automatically after a second or so. The app has been smooth, fast and reliable for me.
I'm ok for using skype just because of the messaging everywhere and actionable replies. Last I saw, it's broken for dual sim users as I can seem to choose the second sim. I see it, but can't choose it. Otherwise it's good enough for me to use, to continue to see updates and give feedback. Messaging app is there for backup
When I reply to a text right away, on my phone, the sorting of messages is incorrect. My reply is displayed above the message I am replying to.
This has been reported and acknowledged and Micorosft in Feedback Hub.
No, it's not ready yet. Lots of work left.
Also, I have been sending sms text messages when the message type switches to Skype automatically.
Same here Sugarbowl06
It sucks! And again, who cares about those bots anyway. Fix the app first!
Even regarding to the boys, it seems quite abandoned and where is Cortana bot Integration that they were proud of? They sure love to show off fancy new stuff, but fall -apart in terms of polish, completeness of certain feature, reliability and availability.
I don't think it's ready to be out of preview, mainly because the performance issues with SMS Relay, however I do really like the app visual design, but the UX not nescarrily the UI needs lots of improvement. I find myself wanting to like the app, dark mode to me is kinda sexy compared to desktop app, but i really need the fullness of desktop experience to be in UWP version. I like where it's going desktop is fairly good, but mobile I think is where it needs the most optimizations. I like it, starting to enjoy it, I want to love it but I just can't at the moment.
Agreed
To each his own. I think the UWP Skype app is great.
What?! Are you serious or are you pranking us?
I also think it's pretty good.
The app is OK. Ready for prime time? Not at all! Just to pick one reason (one that annoys me as hell): lack of OS sharing integration.
THIS!!! Even the abysmal Facebook Messenger at least supports sharing even its bad, all while Skype which is owned by Microsoft doesn't support sharing?! Even now, Live Tile is as basic as iOS badges, at least their iOS version have a Jump List-like feature. Is MS internal structure and mentality seems still like old-MS where developers and teams are disconnected and siloed from each other. There is no unification and cohesion among their products. It's a mess.
GroupMe supports sharing, and they are owned by Skype haha
And Skype on Android also supports sharing. Good job MS! /s Seriously though, I don't know why MS can't operate and have their things all tightly integrated well in their own platform, taking advantage everything it can support. The statement about "...everything works well on Windows..." is now just a wishful thinking, because to their own platform, their apps and some services may not be at their fullest potential.
I guess it's time to hit the feedback hub and maybe they will glance at it. In order to put it on radar though, people have to get in there and upvote this kind of stuff.
Yeah, that's the best we can do as a user of this platform. Problem seems to remain though, it's on Microsoft for not even realizing and caring in regards to consistency in different aspects. They operate like their own company makes doesn't exist or don't matter. They introduce things, hype a bit, release half-baked, put some few things, still missing things that should've been there in the first place, then left it rot, telemetry tells of low usage rate, and lastly killing it. Cycle then repeats. These kind of things don't even need to be submitted on feedbacks, but we have to since even basic quite obvious things are often not being realized.
Do not agree with the verdict. The app works well and has several advantages over the desktop app (dark mode).
Not ready to drop the "Preview." Not even close. I still have issues with contacts, SMS relay, and slowness. Is it better than when first released? Of course. But still nowhere near primetime.
Agree with this ^
The app is functional but pretty so-so. I can't relay my SMS through it until they do right by animated GIFs, meaning letting them show up in a thread like normal pictures do instead of as a file attachment.
bring back the message app, nobody uses skype
It's actually kind of infuriating that they could consider this app good enough to be out of Preview. As Zac mentioned, it's far too slow on mobile (Lumia 830 in my case). It's ugly - why can't it use the Windows accent colour? It randomly switches from SMS to Skype mode when you go to send a message. SMS syncing is not reliable across devices. When I initially receive a message, it comes up on my PC without an issue. However, if I reply, and the person replies back, that next message frequently doesn't sync to my PC until I unlock my phone(?!) I can't clear notifications across devices (hardly a Skype-specific issue, but c'mon) There's a lot of work that still needs to be put into this thing. Edit: Why the heck does the comment system give you the option to make a bulleted list if the actual comment doesn't show the bullets?
The SMS app has more functionality and ease to send: contacts, photos, videos and location or ringtones for that matter.
I've kept all my messages separate. I liked the original way on windows 7 alot though. Where my messaging was in one area on the phone itself. I do however liked when my text messages would pop up on my PC then there I could respond. But that doesn't seem to happen anymore.
My biggest issue with Skype still remains and that is Skype lacks the ability to take and attach a picture while in SMS. With the messaging app I can snap a pic while in text. Messaging app is still faster and less cluttered. Messaging works best for me. YMMV.
If you choose to add a picture, then hit the three dots/choose location, you can choose camera. Still not as easy as messaging app, but it is possible. 🍻
I REALLY would just love for MS to get the sms syncing issue taken care of. It's a disaster as of right now. I haven't had many issues with skype. However, I really liked the back and forth on the podcast between you and Daniel. Haha.
I'll use Skype purely for the SMS relay. I love being able to type text messages from my desktop and Surface keyboards. On my phone, however, I still use the Messaging app when I want to do texting. It's a bit of a pain because Skype is default. But I have Messaging pinned to my start screen and not Skype. Any inconvenience there is far outweighed by the convenience of multi-device SMS
Yeah, def should maintain the "Preview" tag. For me, SMS relay has been pretty stable since mid December. I have issues with the rest of it though. My contacts are severely F'd. I have been getting "+1" numbers added to my people app and most of the contacts have multiple "outlook" links now. The contact names in Skype show as their phone number randomly too. Message & Notification sync is hit or miss. I really hope they can figure out a way for all the Action centers, Live Tile badges, & Lock screens in my life to update when I've read a message. I will continue to use the app because I love the SMS relay to my PC. Please MSFT/Skype, make this the best messaging platform available already!
Skype still doesn't have a live tile for message notifications that I can see. I won't replace messenger until skype has messaging notification.
Has Skype left "Preview" on the Production ring?
Can we make it the default video app? If not, then they alone are telling you its not ready.
I went back to using messaging after using skype for several months. while i really liked being able to send messages via the PC, there were too many issues for me to stay with it... Contacts doubling notification /messagingSlowness messages i send from the phone never show up on the pc the ui takes up too much screen space/blank space (look at the amount of space a single message takes up on the screen in skype vs messaging app). the fact that there is not an accurate live tile count.. I mean seriously?!? this has been an option since Win Phone 7, how can it not be standard on a messaging app? No transparent tile.. the Skype for Business (Lync) app does, but not this. notifications only show the latest message from a person even if they sent multiple.. this combined with not having a message count really causes issues with missed messages when you reply to the message from the action center and not open the app.. Contacts show as phone numbers in the app even if there is a contact with name. Until they fix these issues, i have no interest in using it. i really wish there was a better way to send from the pc.
SMS Relay worked great in most of the builds before 15063. That build killed it so hard. I had to switch back to the regular sms app
I use the Preview version (in production ring) and I love it !!!
The issue I have with the skype app set as default is you can't send group sms's via the people app, it only goes to one person...
In the current version, it doesn't seem to clear notifications from Action Centre when you view the conversation in the app itself, so you have to manually swipe away any action centre notifications - It never used to do this, and this behaviour does go against what MS recommend to developers for user experience. Hopefully a temporary bug
I'm done with Skype. I've kept my local user group on Skype knowing that it was supposed to be the "premiere" client from Microsoft. But Skype is NEVER going to be as fast as the native messaging app for handling SMS. NEVER. It's another layer bolted on top of the built in client. And that means this is DOA with normal users before it even gets going. I desperately want SMS Relay so I've spent the last week giving it another shot. I even tried continuing to use the native client and let Skype sync things to my desktop in the background. It's a kludge, and not livable. Completely unrelated to this article I suggested to my user group this morning that we give GroupMe a shot. Just an hour back into it, after not using GroupMe for a couple of years... I'm sold. GroupMe has a functional Live Tile, I can pin an individual group chat to my start screen, it honours the Share contract. I could go on. Oh, and did I mention it's FAST. You know, the primary function of a messaging app.
Contact management thing is a bigger issue than just the Skype app. It goes back to the whole Skype contact integration with Microsoft Live Messenger. I still have two contact entries for every contact for chat, one for Skype, one for Live Messenger. Why these haven't been merged by now is totally crazy. It makes using Microsoft services in general a disaster for managing contcts. Even the Outlook app in iOS has no ability to sync contacts to iOS so I can use SMS correctly. If you use the native iOS sync you get 4 or 5 entries for each contact, Outlook, Live, Skype, Twitter, etc. It's really making me reconsider using Microsoft for e-mail or anything at all really.
While I use the app and definitely enjoy the increased reliability (I only use it because I really enjoy sending texts from my PC), there are some issues I just can't get with: PC app still has messaging ordering issues (if I send a message from my PC, it too often will place my send message above the previously received message in the message order)
The app is still too slow (especially getting into and out of messages).
The app has a problem where it will duplicate the message thread (you only have one actual thread, but it will split it out into two when getitng into the app the first time).
It doesn't tie pictures and texts into the same message (whether sent or received, it will split them out into two messages, so I have to send them from the regular messaging app).
App has problem sending texts when the phone is locked (if this is something that must be circumvented, then it would be fine if they acknowledged it. My understanding is that since they haven't acknowledged it and it works sometimes, it should work all the time).
If you have multiple failed messages sent in a row on the same thread from the PC, you'll only be given a button to resend the most recent one.
The app doesn't update the message counts reliably enough.
The app doesn't have lockscreen support like the messaging app does (it seems like everyone's just forgotten about this, but I loved having that available to display my most recent message in the messaging app)
Etc. The last issue I have is very specific, but I had a contact on my phone where I had two mobile numbers for them. The default mobile number became invalid later and the second one became the other person's primary number. Therefore everytime I had to send a message, I would have to change the number (select the SMS number, press the gear, switch to the second number). Though I updated the contact in the People app (this happened before Skype got out of preview), yet it would not show up in the profile of the person on the Skype app, so it continued to default to sending my messages to the invalid number. I couldn't change the default number, but could only change/remove the second number, which is this contact's primary number now. Even if I removed the contact from the Skype app (deleted the profile), when adding this person back, the app would default again to their old number. I can't remember exactly what the solution was, but it took some manner of deleting the contact and readding it that finally enabled me to set this person's default number to their actual number. This was entirely too stressful off a process, because Skype's contact management was terrible. I don't know if it's gotten better, but this is what I'm putting up with in order to text from my PC. MS had a perfectly working solution to all of this with the Messaging Everywhere initiative, but they completely bungled this nicety just by making this shift.
I think the idea is that by running it through Skype, it can be cross platform to iOS and Android. If it relies on a built-in Windows app, that doesnt translate outside of windows.
From what I understand, that is the case with the Android app, though I don't know how that works. As it pertains to iOS, they later found came out and said that that wasn't feasible. That would have been a huge plus to iOS in my book as there is no standard way to send messages on it through Windows that I'm aware of.
That issue is still present. Its super annoying
It's because Skype team orders the messages according to timestamp. Messages from local machine are timestamped by the system.
Incoming messages are stamped with network time.
Any deviation (drift) between the two will cause the messages to appear out of order. I live in a place where we don't change time zones. During daylight savings time, a friend was messaging me and all of a sudden, his messages started to appear an hour earlier in the chat history. SUPER ANNOYING. FIFO is the way messaging apps work and I've upvoted the feedback within the feedback app on PC and Mobile.
I still have duplicate contacts. Skype can't figure out that my Outlook contact and my Skype contact that both have the identical name and mobile number are the same contact. It can link up the conversations (by that I mean have two conversations, one for each contact, with the same messages in each) but it can't actually merge the contact or the conversation. And any contacts with this issue don't show up in Recent Conversations. It really is a mess and I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole if it weren't for the convenience of SMS relay. But as soon as a third-party app comes out supporting relay I'll be switching. Which is sad. I was so full of hope.
Same here and it's irritating
I uninstalled it. No live tile like messaging has makes it a non-starter before I even open the app.
The other bummer is, Skype at work is blocked on the network. That's not Skype's fault, but the unified messaging service worked since it wasnt tied to a popular messaging/call app.
I agree
My contacts got duplicated by Skype UWP Preview. I hope they soon going to fix that.
For me I can even send multiple photos so I have to send with WhatsApp. And skype video calls is not great from phone to phone yet .
Zac, I've had issues with the SMS messaging. It worked when I first set it up under Skype Preview, then it just mysteriously stopped. I've yet to see it work now that the app has gone out of preview.
I'm still not getting any update on pubic version.
Booooo...loser. =/
It sucks on mobile data, messages plus missed calls coming 15 minutes late. Like it log off receiveng end every 5 mins although network working normally.
WhatsApp is much better than skype
No it's not. The mail flaws of whatsapp is that it is tied to a phone number, meaning it cannot be used on multiple devices at the same time (that web think doesn't count), it cannot share (any type of) files, it cannot share screen.
Ugh. I'm a huge supporter of the all-in-one messaging concept but this Skype business leaves much to be desired. To be honest, I didn't realize it left the preview stage. I look back at the UI of Messenger and really would love to have it in the Skype app. Skype's UI is ugly, cluttered, and looks like something made by a third party. Why wouldn't Microsft unify the UI to match the rest of the OS? Furthermore, why have they not included a live tile that supports transparency yet? It's been stated in the Feedback Hub that it was coming in a soon to come update. In my opinion that should have been done right away to keep the users happy and quiet while they worked on the stuff under the hood. This app is very clunky, sluggish, and very slapped together. I really hope there is more to come with this app and that things will improve so that we can have a pleasant all-in-one messaging solution.
I agree 100% with Zac.
I'm still saddened that they killed off the Messaging Everywhere app, so much faster and clean and the dream. Maybe one day it'll return/give the option to us.
I still don't get why this is an issue with messenger apps having a similar feature already typing a message one place and then finishing it somewhere else.
Well, eh.. I still see Skype Preview in Apps and in the Store (when opened from search)... Do I have some old version or do I miss something??
Dang WindowsCentral app double posted. And I can't delete it. Ignore this.
I look at SMS as small potatoes, meaning I use other apps more like Whatsapp, Facebook messenger (when someone else sends me a note anyway), email. Not many people use sms any more, or maybe that's just my crowd. Linking SMS to PC use makes sense, but it's a nice to have, not essential. I use Skype for phoning. And it's great. The messaging addition doesn't change that.
I actually love how it looks! My main gripe is the same as yours: Sluggish performance. Both on Desktop and Mobile (I know the mobile app is still in Preview, but since it's only mobile, I doubt it'll get much better).
You could use both you know, I leave messaging live tile on my home screen, when a message comes in if I don't use the quick reply from notifications, I can open messaging and respond there, it also stays in sync with Skype on phone and PC, unlike earlier versions of the Preview.
I do this sometimes as well.
My messaging live tile doesn't show anything when i switch to skype.
Just bring back MSN Messenger
Its not ready. Still have issues with it. Slow, tile not updating, duplicated contacts, no sorting, ui is a mess.... I wish they would fix it rather than focusing on those stupid useless chat bots.
Skype is Great but the UI have to improve more...
Tell us how you really feel Zac. Lolz
Sorry if this has already been asked... Is anyone else still on the preview version on production phone builds? I still haven't gotten this update.
Mine is still preview here on PC, how to update?
It only lost the preview on the insider preview builds. So one can argue that it still hasn't lost the preview tag. All of these insiders seem to forget that most people aren't running insider builds.
Totally agree. Opening a message from the notification is the most painful thing along with sending a message to a group in People app. So so painful. Though I still use it because I use SMS relay a tonne during the day working on my SP4. But MS, if you're listening please please please make Skype UWP much much better! It really is a terrible experience. Messages not being in sync across all devices is still a bit problem as well.
How about Skype playing nice with Cortana's Breakthrough list when in Quiet Hours? Does it work?
Quiet hours wasn't working at all for me last night. I got a loud email notification at 4am.
My Win 10 and Win 10 mobile app still say preview, also I wonder when it will be able to download for the public on Xbox One?
Perfect summary of my exact experience and why I even uninstalled Skype Preview from my 950XL. Not touching that with a 10ft pole for a while...
It gets even worse in regards on switching to what number you want to send or from which SIM/skype account. The messaging app does this like a charm, the skype not so much.
The Skype UWP is very slow and cumbersome to use.. If Messaging Everywhere is available on the old Messaging app, i would definitely go back and use it..
same mediocre UI design...what moron designed this app?
It isn't ready. Updated the app and it's still listed as Skype Preview.
Does everyone still have a 'Messaging' app on their win10 desktop pc, that does nothing but open a blank screen? And the app can't be removed?
Yes. Shows nothing after creators update
I love my 950 for it's dark themes, but I think Skype UWP looks miles better in the light theme, annoyingly.
One of microsofts biggest ever mistakes was winning the messaging service war, and then intentionally killing Messenger in the hope it would drive people to Skype (which didn't have half the features). Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I still am not at all a fan of the UI. Especially the colors used for text messages. Very ugly and unappealing colors. Contact management in W10 is broken in general and I don't blame skype. Outlook randomly creates duplicate contacts. CONSTANTLY. Currently my biggest gripe with W10. I have going into people and seeing 37 contacts for one person.
I personally thought that MS had abandoned this app completely like half a year ago. It is not stable or reliabale and there was no fixes for that in months. And now it just going to be released in that state. Wow *slow clap*
In what way is Skype coming out of Preview? When I bring up Skype it still says Skype Preview. No indication that I can download some updated version.
If I have to choose between performance and features I'll always pick features. Simple. Messaging app did not allow me to share files, while Skype does. That's all I care about. SMS performance is acceptable, the main issue is that Skype often seems to fail to merge skype contacts with phone contacs, even though they're already merged in the people app. It also allows me to edit last sent message via pressing the up arrow (even on a phone using that dot arrow), which is something that always was present in Win32 Skype, but NEVER in any mobile skype until now.
No, it's not ready.
When you say "Universal Skype app" does this mena there is now only one version of Skype and Skype Personal and Skype for Business apps have been combined? It doesn't look that way to me so "universal' is not really the right word here or have I missed something?

Show more comments

Has Skype really improved?

Skype as my main messaging app?

Windows Central Newsletter