Skype Version 4
Wow they’ve changed a lot. A lot of the changes come to the UI, as Skype looks completely different. For example, the whole Skype window is set out more square, and has two parts to it: your contacts sidebar and the chat pane, and all of the call stuff goes on in the right chat pane along with some store stuff.
There are other noticeable improvements too, such as much faster starting and signing in speeds (the whole cycle is about 5 seconds for me), and the whole application seems more responsive. When you call someone Skype immediately does it, you don’t get a couple of seconds delay like with Skype 3.
The UI seems more consistent with the Skype website design, and looks much more awesome than any previous version did. I can’t see a tab for Skype Live in sight, which in my opinion is a good thing.
You can grab the beta for Windows here and try it out for yourself.
Reader Comments
4 responses so far
1Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger) 
2Alex 
3Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger) 
4Alex
Leave a commentGlad you like it — we’ll be releasing a second beta soon which will refine the interface further and re-add some of the functionality missing from the first release.
I really like the new 4.0 BETA but the one problem I hate about it at the moment is that you cant get it to start “silently” and not show your contacts automatically. Otherwise it has some fantastic new features.
By ’silently’ do you mean start and not sign in? You can uncheck the ‘Sign in when Skype starts’ box on the Sign In window to avoid this. Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood your comment :)
Thanks for replying. I meant like for example when you start Windows Live Messenger you can make it start and sign in without opening the main window. What I meant was that I dont think you can do that with Skype?
See what I mean? Or am I missing something?