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Is skype absolutely abysmal for everyone else?

A

AdrianK

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Feb 19, 2011
2,230
2
The video is okay, but the audio is crap, sounds like everything's underwater. iStatMenus reports that skype is only using 96kilobits/second of data both in and out. My connection is 11mb down and 1mb up, my gf's connection is identical.

Any thoughts?
 
gotta say it. i hate skype. i can understand why windows users would want it. i just dont understand why anyone would ever use skype over iChat.

It's. So. Ugly.
 
michael.lauden said:
gotta say it. i hate skype. i can understand why windows users would want it. i just dont understand why anyone would ever use skype over iChat.

It's. So. Ugly.
Click to expand...

I know, it's horrible, I just don't know what else to use.

Can anyone recommend a decent combo of mac application, windows application and voip service?
 
AdrianK said:
The video is okay, but the audio is crap, sounds like everything's underwater. iStatMenus reports that skype is only using 96kilobits/second of data both in and out. My connection is 11mb down and 1mb up, my gf's connection is identical.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Works great for me. I video call the UK every day and the audio and video are very clear.

I did down grade from V 5 to 2.8, but that was not due to quality issues.
 
My take is a tad different.

I think Skype is great, especially when different platforms & OSs are involved. I use Skype with multiple associates in distant places such as the Isle Of Man, and always the audio & video is first-rate, no garbling or pixelation, etc. Connecting with the same chap via iChat has been so bad as to be unusable. I have repeated the test with various users, many times, with always the same result.

But as previously said, the UI is dreadful, easy to use, but still dreadful. Ergo, I reverted to version 2.8.0.866.
 
michael.lauden said:
gotta say it. i hate skype. i can understand why windows users would want it. i just dont understand why anyone would ever use skype over iChat.

It's. So. Ugly.
Click to expand...

Because iChat is a crap restricted waste of space perhaps?

Apple don't even rate it, as it has been completely ignored and now replaced with FacePalm.

Until another company develops a piece of software that can be used easily on multiple platforms nothing will replace it. The quality isn't great, but it's the best of a bad bunch.
 
I find Skype can perform wonderfully when setup properly. On the PC side of things I use a Logitech 9000 webcam which has a very high quality mic and camera. The results are quite good. One the Mac side of things I mainly use the built in mic and speakers which are fine. I've used a Etymotic HF3 headset a few times and that works well also. When I've used Skype with low end microphones or cameras, its a very different story. The sound can suffer quickly and the video seems to be particularly crappy.

Obviously I have no idea how you have your computers setup but in general I find Skype to be a great system. It scales very well no matter what your connection is. I'd rate it 7\10 because it is ugly. :)
 
G4DP said:
Because iChat is a crap restricted waste of space perhaps?

Apple don't even rate it, as it has been completely ignored and now replaced with FacePalm.

Until another company develops a piece of software that can be used easily on multiple platforms nothing will replace it. The quality isn't great, but it's the best of a bad bunch.
Click to expand...

Yikes. Someone feels strongly. The only qualm you have about iChat is the fact that it's not multiplatform?

I use AIM, Bonjour, Gtalk, and Facebook chat - and use Chax for the unified window and to auto accept text im's. I have a mac - I don't care if it's not multi platform - why would any windows user use iChat over the AIM client?

The quality is great in my opinion, the only thing I don't understand is why FaceTime is a separate app. Would be nice to have FaceTime integration in iChat - but I guess we'll see what happens as time goes on.

I, and 99% of everyone else, rarely use FaceTime anyways.
 
Skype is great. It's easy to navigate, everyone has it, and the quality is usually decent.
And did someone actually mention iChat? It's dead.
 
Skype on a mac to mac has been excellent, mac to PC a little less than excellent but still better than most anything else I have used. Even skype from iPhone4 on 3g to PC was good. And for a free service (for most), you actually get quite a bit.
 
michael.lauden said:
gotta say it. i hate skype. i can understand why windows users would want it. i just dont understand why anyone would ever use skype over iChat.

It's. So. Ugly.
Click to expand...

Because I have 0 contacts that use AIM, so iChat is useless to me.

The solution is simple, don't use version 5. Go back to 2.8, it still works a dream. Hopefully Skype 6 for Mac will be a vast improvment.
 
I have many issues with iChat.

It's basically useless as a solo piece of software. The only other person I know who has a Mac is my wife. I still prefer to talk to her in person. So iChat is totally useless to us.

What is the point of having a piece of software where you have to initiate other protocols for it to work? Having to sort that out is adding another stage for it to fail.

I've never had a problem with Skype, either 2.8 or 5. Granted 5 is fugly but it's not the end of the world.

One of two things has to happen for either of the Mac App's to be useful. Apple either has to mac them multi-platform or make the compatible with other pieces of software. As hell is more likely to freeze before either of those happen. Apples attempt at communication via the computer will remain a half arsed attempt.
 
I use to speak with my ex in China via Skype but the video and sound was shockingly bad. Often getting cut off or failing to connect altogether. Even if it did connect you could barely hold a conversation. Ok 5500 miles is quite a distance but GoogleTalk is brilliant and get great video and sound talking to her. Plus Skype messages on my iPhone seem to build up unbeknownst to me then about 10 will come through at once. She then thinks I'm ignoring her so I get one or two "how are you?" then "why arent you talking" then "have i done something wrong". It didnt exactly help the relationship (hence ex lol). In my experience Skype is terrible and the new Mac version is atrocious. The UI is simply terrible. I dont use Skype at all anymore because everything about it from what I have experience is just terrible.

If you can use Gtalk its much better in my opinion. You can use AIM app on iphone (and a few others) if you want to use it when mobile. :)
 
MacBoobsPro said:
I use to speak with my ex in China via Skype but the video and sound was shockingly bad. Often getting cut off or failing to connect altogether. Even if it did connect you could barely hold a conversation. Ok 5500 miles is quite a distance but GoogleTalk is brilliant and get great video and sound talking to her. Plus Skype messages on my iPhone seem to build up unbeknownst to me then about 10 will come through at once. She then thinks I'm ignoring her so I get one or two "how are you?" then "why arent you talking" then "have i done something wrong". It didnt exactly help the relationship (hence ex lol). In my experience Skype is terrible and the new Mac version is atrocious. The UI is simply terrible. I dont use Skype at all anymore because everything about it from what I have experience is just terrible.

If you can use Gtalk its much better in my opinion. You can use AIM app on iphone (and a few others) if you want to use it when mobile. :)
Click to expand...

Now we're getting somewhere!

Sounds like we're experiencing the same thing, except the distance between the gf and I is only 4 miles, so that shouldn't be an issue >.< I know what you mean about skype 5, it looks awful, when I had to reinstall skype (after re-installing OS X) I just went straight to 2.8 :p

Thanks for the tip on Gtalk, I hadn't considered it, but we're both Gtalk users already so that should be fine. Will try it out and report back :)
 
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