Skype for Android keeps waking up the dead

Skype for your Android phone or tablet isn't as good as it used to be since they yanked out the tabs. Too bad Skype updates fix security issues (old Skype versions are not safe at all), so keeping ancient versions is comes at a price.

The last update adds MSN accounts. In case you missed it, Microsoft p3wns Skype and they're crossbreeding it with their own old chat network. And the sound of your Skype calls improved a little. It's still no match for standard SIP or Viber, but it got a tiny little bit closer.

Got an Android tablet? The new Skype only works in landscape mode, which can be very annoying, especially on the smaller 7" tablets.

Something that should have changed but didn't: Skype still makes noise when it shouldn't. Skype shouts at you when you start it up, it screams at you when you shut it down, and its dialpad tones are so loud that they caused a riot at my local cemetery. Microsoft, please let me switch off those annoying dialpad sounds so the dead in the graveyard can sleep. There's really no need to send out deafening beeps everytime I push a button. Now that Skype ate MSN it's even more about text chat than it was already. Now fix your app and let people send out texts without waking up the neighborhood.

Skype v1.0.0.983 still has tabs, and it doesn't make noise unless you ask it to.

• Skype (Google Play)
• skype.com
• Skype 1.0.0.983 (on i-Pmart, a site with a dark side, beware of the dog)

p.s. I'm still waiting for a multi-network VoIP app that unites Skype, Viber, SIP, Vonage, Google Voice etc. in a single interface.