The final release of a completely rock-and-roll Skype app for Windows Phone 8 is upon us all here. The company yesterday updated its app for Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 with a Preview Release. Skype was quick to mention that the “experiences are not yet final,” adding that some features “are work-in-progress and may not function consistently.” Those features address, among other things, call reliability and “the ability to receive incoming calls and chat notifications when outside of the app.”
Although Skype did not disclosed extensive details about the update, but according to GeekWire reporting yesterday that the app has also lost its integration with Windows Phone’s People Hub.
However, this exceptional update will ensure that the 2.0.0.473 release from weeks ago will have a more fluid performance, and Microsoft will most probably focus on the performance and reliability aspects of the popular VoIP app instead of throwing in more features. All in all, it should be back end stuff that we are talking about here, being transparent to users and yet delivering a better overall experience.
Besides, version 2.1 does not come with a specific change-log at the moment, so any kind of changes made or experienced would just have to be shared verbally or in written form. The app remains designated as a “Preview”, so that means there are still a load of issues and tweaks to be addressed before the entire app is finalized.
People Hub Integration of Skype was one of the intrinsic features that Microsoft played up prior to the release of the app. The disabling of the integration is not an accidental side-effect of the update, but rather something that the update was designed to do, because of stability issues.
In a statement to GeekWire, Skype said that it had “temporarily disabled the People Hub integration as it was causing issues with device stability. We are working with the Windows Phone team to resolve the issue and to enable the integration again in a future release.”
As a matter of fact, People Hub Integration is a pretty handy feature on Windows Phone as it lists a user’s phone number, e-mail addresses, and other relevant contact information. The Skype integration added a person’s username to People Hub to make it easier to place calls through the VoIP service.
Despite that loss, Windows Phone Skype users still got a few additions. Users can now sign in to Skype with their Microsoft accounts and instant message with Messenger friends. The good thing is that once Skype has been initiated, it will continue to run in the background even if you close the app, so you do not have to worry about missing calls.