I don’t know what it is about Skype it’s just one product I can’t seem to move away from for my daily needs. I travel a lot for my job and places I go sometimes don’t have the best cell service or people I am working with need face to face meeting.
My first issue has been and will always be cell phone reception. Places I go to generally have Wi-Fi coverage but when you’re deep in the basement of a building, in middle of a huge hospital or at an event center cell phone coverage is always an issue. I find myself many times needing to call support numbers with no cell phone service present. Most places don’t allow Wi-Fi calling on iPhones and Androids but using Skype is fine at these places mainly because they are Microsoft owned and considered secure. The other issue is usually my laptop is connected to Wi-Fi and you can use Skype to call a landline number as well.
The other reason I use Skype is for meetings and conference calls. I know it sounds kind nuts but since Microsoft is putting Skype on all Windows 10 machines this has been great for me when it comes to setting up meetings. I know a lot of readers have said just use FaceTime the issue is many of my clients are Android users and FaceTime only allows one video chat at a time there is no group video chat capability.
I have tried many alternatives to Skype over the years for just video calls with Android users Hangouts is great but it does not support landline calling the same goes for the WhatsApp. I have found ooVoo and Viber as alternatives to Skype with some limitations that keep me from making the switch. ooVoo is a great app but lacks the desktop support that I do need at times.
Viber has a great desktop client and great calling price of $2.50 for unlimited North American calls. I actually started using this as my go-to app for a while until the issue became callbacks. Unlike Skype for $35 dollars a year I can’t get a designated phone number if someone has to call me back I can’t give them the Skype number to call. The other issue with Viber became usability for users. Unlike Skype, I would have to walk users through setting up Viber. Since Viber is not a default installed app like Skype and does not have brand recondition very few people had ever used it or installed it making it time-consuming for users to install, set up an account and find out how to operate the software.
Despite so many issues with Skype, Microsoft over the last several months have been working them out and Skype has gotten better over the last few months with many frequent updates from Microsoft adding app features and bug fixes. Recently the addition of texting through Skype on the mobile client has been a huge help for me and the addition of Cortana in Skype has been great fun.
Despite many issues with Skype I just can’t seem to stop using it as it’s important for my daily needs.