Microsoft’s transition from Windows Live Messenger to Skype has been rough; just look at the comments on our site about the subject. In an interview with The Verge, Skype product manager Jeff Kunins promises the company is working to fix Skype’s myriad of issues.
One of the biggest issues Skype is trying to tackle is how the messaging service works across multiple devices since there are apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Messages are often out of sync, not marking messages as read when a user has read it on another device. Users have also faced issues where notifications would be pushed to every device with the Skype app installed instead of sending the alert only to the active device. Kunins promises a fix in the near future.
“It’s one of those [bugs] that seems like it should be trivial, but it’s actually quite hard.”
Another frustrating issue with Skype sync is that a phone call will continue ringing on other devices even after you’ve picked up. “That’s just a fun bug we’re working on. It’s one of those that seems like it should be trivial, but it’s actually quite hard, especially on some platforms like Windows 8 or on the web,” says Kunins. The Skype team is still working on this bug and it will not be rolled out at the same time as the fix for messaging.
Kunins also reassures Windows Phone users that Windows Phone 8.1 will include a bunch of performance and bug fixes for Skype. The Skype team is working closely with the Windows Phone team to make sure the user experience is better.
Finally, Kunins addressed the issues Skype had after it was acquired by Microsoft. Video Messaging debuted on the iOS and Android apps, forcing Windows Phone users to wait a couple of months before it was rolled out. “It was just completely honest coincidence based on the fact that historically that sequence didn’t matter at all. On things like that, we’ll just do a better job at when we start things,” says Kunins.
Source: The Verge
