SKYPE for WP8 - What's working and what's missing

[pmouse]

After trying out the beta release just now, I've found that:

- Receiving calls when the device is in standby works fine, over WIFI and LTE.
- The UI is pretty responsible
- Text messages can be received in standby as well (via toast notification)
- Voice and video over LTE is pretty fluid! Thanks to the Lumia 920 microphone, my voice gets delivered with limited distortion. To test the fidelity I've tried playing the violin over Skype, it's pretty clear as well. Compression noise is virtually nonexistent.

What's missing:
- I have yet to see log off or switch account. Once you sign in, you are IN for good. There's an option to be invisible though.
- When you receive a call, there's an option to answer or ignore via the OS's call UI. Once you choose to answer, you are presented with two further buttons: mute and turn on video. However, there's no "turn off speaker and use ear piece" option. If you want to have a private conversation over skype, you'd have to first go through the speaker, then hit the windows button, then hit back. At this point the call UI presents you with two more buttons, one of which is to turn off the speaker.
Note: I've just found out that if the other party initiates a voice call, then you'll answer it with ear piece, with the option of turning the video on and the speaker on separately.
- The settings menu is a joke But then I don't know what settings I would put in there really.

That's all for now, what's your experience with Skype for WP8?


Updated Nov 12:
About the LTE vs WIFI issue, I've ran the following test:

With two lumia 920s, turn one's WIFI completely off, and one in standby mode, having preconfigure to connect to the WIFI router.

Logon to the router status, I'm running dd-wrt, which shows the connection bandwidth usage, as well as a list of connected devices.

Using the phone with LTE only, call the phone in standby mode with Skype. One the call go through, swipe up immediately and click answer (so there's little time for it to pre-connect to WIFI)

Turns out that at this point, the second phone would show the "connecting..." screen, then my router reports the second phone as connected, which means at this point it's got active WIFI connection. The skype call would finally connect, and the router would show about 50Kbps data usage, both incoming and outgoing.

This means that when available, Skype will try to establish WIFI over LTE. So, no worries there.

 

[ajua]

Thanks for that quick description of your experience. I'm waiting for the Black 8X I ordered a few days ago and Skype is one of the apps I will install first.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

If your phone is in stand by and you're in WiFi coverage, will the incoming video call remain entirely on cellular network since WP switches to cellular automatically? If yes then that is a massive flaw right there. Every time my phone is in stand by, I'd have to cancel any incoming Skype call so that I can make one myself once my phone is connected to WiFi

 

[brmiller1976]

You get a toast notification when you're not in the app. Then, you unlock the screen to accept the call, WiFi connection is re-established, and you answer it. Easy!

 

[ammarmalik2011]

You get a toast notification when you're not in the app. Then, you unlock the screen to accept the call, WiFi connection is re-established, and you answer it. Easy!

Here's the thing:

Phone in standby, connected to cellular, I get an incoming Skype call because someone saw me online on Skype because of my cellular connection in standby. It's because of that connection he is able to get the call going, my screen lights up and shows the incoming call notification. In this period if the phone disconnects from cellular to Wifi then it should disconnect the call because there's that 1 second delay for WiFi to get going

 

[KoukiFC3S]

Good info, thanks.

Im gonna try a video call later today.

 

[tk-093]

Here's the thing:

Phone in standby, connected to cellular, I get an incoming Skype call because someone saw me online on Skype because of my cellular connection in standby. It's because of that connection he is able to get the call going, my screen lights up and shows the incoming call notification. In this period if the phone disconnects from cellular to Wifi then it should disconnect the call because there's that 1 second delay for WiFi to get going

I think when you're in standby and somebody tries to call you, they are not actually ringing your phone.. I think they are ringing the cloud and the cloud sends you a notification that somebody wants to skype you. Wouldn't that wake up your phone, which establishes the WiFi, then when you tell Skype to answer it then makes a connection to the cloud via WiFi to link up to the call waiting for you?

At least that is how I would do it.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

I think when you're in standby and somebody tries to call you, they are not actually ringing your phone.. I think they are ringing the cloud and the cloud sends you a notification that somebody wants to skype you. Wouldn't that wake up your phone, which establishes the WiFi, then when you tell Skype to answer it then makes a connection to the cloud via WiFi to link up to the call waiting for you?

At least that is how I would do it.

The reason why you're 'online' on the cloud is because your phone has an active connection to the cloud. That active connection in standby will be via cellular data. So any incoming call from that point on will be entirely on cellular. This is a massive flaw IMO and it needs to be fixed yesterday.

 

[EricCantona]

Also I think since it's preview it's not really fully baked into the People hub yet. As I still don't see Skype contact being synced. I only see the usual gmail, facebook and live on the top of the screen.

 

[tk-093]

The reason why you're 'online' on the cloud is because your phone has an active connection to the cloud. That active connection in standby will be via cellular data. So any incoming call from that point on will be entirely on cellular. This is a massive flaw IMO and it needs to be fixed yesterday.

Are you sure that is indeed how it works, or are you assuming? Just like I am assuming in my theory.

 

[Eric Immerman]

Missing Log Out is Huge

The missing log out is a huge problem. I have a work account and a personal account. I don't want the two mixed. And I cannot switch between them now that I have logged in with Work.

I have also read several reports online of people who accidentally logged in with a friends or wives or kids account while testing and are now stuck.

The new design for everything else is fantastic. But they really need to work through the logout issue.

- Eric

 

[tk-093]

Does it use the default microsoft account you set the phone up with, or when you install it can you use a different account?

 

[Alex Rodriguez Jr.]

Different account.

Also, it syncs with the people hub. Make sure you check Skype in the filtered list, it takes a bit

 

[tk-093]

Different account.

Also, it syncs with the people hub. Make sure you check Skype in the filtered list, it takes a bit

That's good to know. The microsoft ID is a generic family one so we can share the XBox Music stuff, but I have a seperate Skype ID.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

Are you sure that is indeed how it works, or are you assuming? Just like I am assuming in my theory.

Engadget reported that it uses cellular if a call comes in standby.

 

[pmouse]

About the LTE vs WIFI issue, I've ran the following test:

With two lumia 920s, turn one's WIFI completely off, and one in standby mode, having preconfigure to connect to the WIFI router.

Logon to the router status, I'm running dd-wrt, which shows the connection bandwidth usage, as well as a list of connected devices.

Using the phone with LTE only, call the phone in standby mode with Skype. One the call go through, swipe up immediately and click answer (so there's little time for it to pre-connect to WIFI)

Turns out that at this point, the second phone would show the "connecting..." screen, then my router reports the second phone as connected, which means at this point it's got active WIFI connection. The skype call would finally connect, and the router would show about 50Kbps data usage, both incoming and outgoing.

This means that when available, Skype will try to establish WIFI over LTE. So, no worries there.