San Francisco — Popular peer-to-peer communications provider, Skype’s budding Windows Phone app broke out of beta today, releasing version 1.0 of Skype for Windows Phone, adding contact searching and landline calling to its VoIP repertoire, thus fulfilling a promise the company made at Mobile World Congress to move the app out of beta by April.
The latest update replaces the Skype beta version that Microsoft delivered at the end of February at Mobile World Congress, and features a handful of minor improvements that should keep your calls connected.
The new version includes a new capabilities that enables you to search your contacts and add them on Skype. Other pretty enhancements include the ability to call landline phone numbers, a quicker boot time, and other bug fixes.
Moreover, some initial user reviews have been combined with users mainly complaining about the missing ability to receive calls when Skype is not running, which means you will always need to keep the app active otherwise other users would not be able to Skype you.
More new features in Skype v1.0 for Windows Phone:
-
Ability to call landlines
-
Improved launch time
-
Portrait mode video calling
-
Support for joining audio conference calls
-
Call-in-progress notifications
-
Block and unblock contacts
-
General bug fixes
In fact, this is because of limitations within the Windows Phone OS and Skype, according to Microsoft. Besides, Skype for Windows Phone empowers you to connect with friends and family via free voice and video calls anywhere you go on 4G, 3G and Wi-Fi networks. Users can also make affordable calls to landlines and mobiles using Skype Credit.
Among other cool features, the 6 MB free Skype for Windows Phone app runs on Windows Phone 7.5 devices and higher. Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to more tightly integrate Skype with the Windows Phone 8 operating system release. However, according to early leaks, Skype will still remain a standalone app by the time Windows Phone 8 debuts, which is expected to be before the end of calendar 2012.
Similarly, there are already Skype for iPhone, Skype for Android and Skype for Blackberry apps available.
You can download the latest version of Skype for Windows Phone on the official site.