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New Skype Update Is Horrible

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Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#151

Post by CalRobert »

crb wrote: post #52
scrollaway wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have high hopes for Discord video, which is coming out soon. Knowing the discord team and seeing the quality of the voice product, I'm finally going to be able to replace god-awful Google Hangouts.

What's god-awful about Hangouts, and does the new Hangouts Meet make things better? https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/meet-the-new-enterp...

We're a shrinking bunch (sadly) but if you care about being able to use Firefox, Hangouts feels like Google's attempt to kill it. They apparently can't figure out WebRTC in Firefox.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#152

Post by yoodenvranx »

crb wrote: post #52
scrollaway wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have high hopes for Discord video, which is coming out soon. Knowing the discord team and seeing the quality of the voice product, I'm finally going to be able to replace god-awful Google Hangouts.

What's god-awful about Hangouts, and does the new Hangouts Meet make things better? https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/meet-the-new-enterp...

> What's god-awful about Hangouts

Basically everything. It used to be the main communication tool of the Ingress community (precursor of Pokemon Go) due to it's integration with the game but 95% of all players have moved to Telegram because HO is a horribly broken piece of tech which becomes worse and worse after each update.

A running gag in the Ingress community was that the HO is to Google what Australia was to the U.K., e.g. if you did something stupid while working at Google you would be sent to work with the HO team as punishment.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#153

Post by CamperBob2 »

Bud wrote: post #126
makecheck wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably going to be a problem that next-generation lawmakers have to solve: how to force entities to distinguish between different types of changes, and be liable for sticking to that set. Just like it’s ridiculous to let installers run as root without a sandbox, it should be considered ridiculous that we can’t constrain updaters: I should be able to say “bug fixes only” or whatever, and see only that happen…

Wait. You actually think that individual consumers should be able to, essentially, construct their own unique snowflake version of an app which only fixes bugs but retains the UI (and god knows what other code) from an arbitrary previous version? Look, I don't like some of these stupid updates either, but that idea is completely unworkable.

The GP does have a point, which is that force-feeding a crippled UX to users of a paid application should be considered a tort. EULAs that permit such behavior are comparable to allowing car dealers to sneak into our garages in the dead of night and downgrade the cars we buy from them. Such a contract would be treated as unconscionable and tossed unceremoniously out of court.

Either allow people to install older versions of the app, or as suggested, find a way to uncouple presentation from functionality. That's no more or less "unworkable" than any other engineering problem.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#154

Post by Bud »

inetknght wrote: post #147
Bud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait. You actually think that individual consumers should be able to, essentially, construct their own unique snowflake version of an app which only fixes bugs but retains the UI (and god knows what other code) from an arbitrary previous version? Look, I don't like some of these stupid updates either, but that idea is completely unworkable.

I wish I had the downvote feature just for your comment. Unworkable? Are you kidding? It's absolutely brilliant. It's exactly what I want. Give me a feature set. Give me a separate UI which interacts with that feature set. Let me pick and choose both of them, completely separately. That's what an API is supposed to be and do.

I actually don't disagree with you that it's brilliant. Nor that it would be desirable.

But it's still unworkable, like I said.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#155

Post by cbhl »

dinnouti wrote: post #125
pveierland wrote: post #66

My worst Skype annoyance was when they seized your purchased credits if your account was left unused for 180 days. As a sporadic user of Skype when I needed to place an international call etc, having purchased credits reset automatically was such a provocation [0]. Every time I have to re-install Skype for some reason, there's always a new regression or dark UX pattern in use. [0] https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/01…

That's the reason I switch to google hangouts for my international calls. Just open the browser and make the call.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be left behind as the only tech company that didn't release a Snapchat clone. ;)

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#156

Post by coreyoconnor »

Meekro wrote: post #10

What could I switch to (on both Mac and PC) that would give me better video chat functionality? Edit: Just to clarify, here's what I'm looking for: 1. Free plan; available everywhere in the world (I have family outside the US). 2. Both Mac and PC clients that are actually good. 3. Video chat quality (including noise filtering and such) that matches or exceeds what Skype can do. 4. IM-like client that supports text, v…

I like the UI of Amazon Chime: https://chime.aws/

Though it is business focused.

1. There is a free plan, but limited.

2. Android, iPhone, Mac, and PC clients that work well.

Occasional notification syncing issues. That's about the worse of it.

3. I don't know; I haven't used Skype in years. Better than Lync and Polycom.

4. Yep.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#157

Post by julianz »

derefr wrote: post #18

Question: does Skype for Business (nee Lync) mirror these same UX changes as Skype makes them, or does it do its own thing? Because I'm guessing this is just Microsoft further differentiating their product categories: today's Skype is for consumers (ala Facebook Messenger), so it gets "cute" features at the expense of the ability to use it for productivity; while Skype for Business continues to be about efficient col…

The Business one still looks like MSN Messenger of old, give or take. Unfortunately it has a host of it's own small, annoying bugs. The first chat message of the day routinely appears above yesterday's messages so you don't see it. Emailed "missed conversations" have timestamps that are 8 hours out so you wonder why someone was talking to you in the middle of the night and it turns out it was 10 minutes ago. All of these seem to have been reported to Microsoft, who have ignored or wilfully misunderstood them.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#158

Post by flashman »

Fezzik wrote: post #122
CSDude wrote: post #7

I have witnessed Skype to go from almost perfect video & chat communicator to absolute crap over almost 10 years, and I feel very sad that it has come to rip off Snapchat. There is no alternative like the old Skype now in the desktop.

It really is astonishing. I remember using Skype around 2004/05 on a horribly crappy Dell laptop and it (Skype) worked flawlessly. It sort of boggles the mind how far in to the ground it has been driven.

It's like an artist who doesn't know when to stop painting.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#159

Post by SirensOfTitan »

inetknght wrote: post #147
Bud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait. You actually think that individual consumers should be able to, essentially, construct their own unique snowflake version of an app which only fixes bugs but retains the UI (and god knows what other code) from an arbitrary previous version? Look, I don't like some of these stupid updates either, but that idea is completely unworkable.

I wish I had the downvote feature just for your comment. Unworkable? Are you kidding? It's absolutely brilliant. It's exactly what I want. Give me a feature set. Give me a separate UI which interacts with that feature set. Let me pick and choose both of them, completely separately. That's what an API is supposed to be and do.

With 10 toggleable features you add 1023 additional app configurations. This quickly becomes incredibly difficult to maintain and test.

Picking and choosing a feature set for most applications sits in the completely infeasible plane.

Re: New Skype Update Is Horrible

#160

Post by arkitaip »

flashman wrote: post #158
Fezzik wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is astonishing. I remember using Skype around 2004/05 on a horribly crappy Dell laptop and it (Skype) worked flawlessly. It sort of boggles the mind how far in to the ground it has been driven.

It's like an artist who doesn't know when to stop painting.

It's more like a mediocre artist buying a great painting made by a master and the decides to "improve" it by adding more and more paint.
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