Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac: Skype Access and Screen Sharing

By Peter Parkes on January 6, 2009 in Announcements, Skype Beta and new releases.

We know it’s been a while, but we’re finally ready to pull the wraps off Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, our latest release for the Mac platform. To make up for the wait, we’ve included two exciting new features which aren’t currently available on Skype for Windows.

Download the new Beta now – and read on for more details.

Skype Access

Ever been in a café, airport or on a train, wanted to get online and had to fiddle around with credit cards and login details for WiFi networks? Or been in a situation where you want to make a quick Skype call or send a couple of emails, but didn’t want to fork out for an hour’s WiFi access?

Say hello to Skype Access – pay by the minute for WiFi access using your Skype Credit with a single click.

Where can I get Skype Access?

Skype Access is available in over 100,000 places around the world – and our partner Boingo (who actually make the WiFi bit work) have a hotspot finder so you can hunt some out ahead of time. You’ll know you’re in a Skype Access area when you open Skype, connect to a public WiFi network, and a pop up window appears informing you that WiFi is available via Boingo.

How does it work?

Click Start in the Skype Access window to kick things off – and that’s it. You only pay per minute for what you use, and there are no sneaky hidden charges. When you’re finished, click the Stop button in the Skype Access window.

Skype Access provides full access to all internet services – no nasty blocking or filtering, though you’ll have to comply with Boingo’s Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy just to make sure you’re not getting totally out of control

How much does it cost?

A very reasonable €0.14 / $0.19 / £0.11 per minute (€0.16 / $0.22 / £0.13 including Luxembourg VAT at 15% where applicable). You can keep tabs on how much you’ve spent by signing in to your account on the Skype website. When you stop Skype Access, the amount will be deducted from your Skype Credit balance. Simple.

Screen Sharing

I’m sure you’ve been talking to someone on Skype and wanted to show off something you’ve been working on, or explain to them how to do something in iPhoto, or prove to them just how many unread emails you have. Well, if you’re using Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, you can.

During a call, choose Share Screen from the Share button in the call window – and away you go. For more about Screen Sharing, including a video showing it in action, head over to the Mac blog.

Other new features

Improved chat management: you can sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
Quick Add: it’s now much easier to add people to chats
Mood message chat: see mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
Large profile pictures: just like Skype 4.0 Beta 2 for Windows, you can now use images of up to 256 x 256 pixels
Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests: a small minority of Skype users have profile pictures which others may find unpleasant, and so they’re now hidden by default in contact requests
Add notes to contacts: you can add notes to a contact in their profile window – handy for keeping track of who’s who.

There’s more about these new features on the Mac blog – so head over and take a look.

Do let us know what you think of these new features – your feedback will help us make the final version of Skype 2.8 for Mac even better.

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Comments

Will Windows Users ever get Screen Sharing? That would totally ROCK!

@braydencorleone - It's available as a Skype Extra.

http://www.indianweb2.com/2008/09/mikogo-skype-free-screen-sharing-conference-call/

Unfortunately Skype still ignores the setting to hide the main window at startup (option under System Preferences --> Accounts --> Login Items). It is very annoying having to manually close the Skype window each time you start up your computer. When it comes to public settings such as giving speeches, it is not acceptable that an audience of, say 100 people sees your Skype contacts.

The bug was mentioned as early as 2005 (http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=30203) but nothing has happened ever since.

The least Skype could do is respect that setting. Even better from my point of view would be an "agent" or service similar to the Windows system tray so Skype doesn't show at all when you press Command-Tab. iChat does something like that (people can see that you're online and they can call you although iChat is not running).

ulungata: Yes, it is an old bug. Thanks for pointing it out. It's time to finally fix it.

I agree with what has already been mentioned. However, skype worked ok for me earlier, but this beta is really annoying. It shows that I have a new message every time someone changes their status!! And as far as I can see, there is no way of turning it off. Would´nt it be better to just color the contacts row or something?

Keeps crashing on my MBP running 10.5.6, can't get it to even log me in. Please help!

When IM'ing apostrophes don't work. the word "It's" comes out as "It's" at the other end. Happens with all apostrophes. It got so annoying for the people I was chatting to that I have had to go back to the non-beta version, which is a shame.

I'm sure this is an easy one to fix though.

ok, the text fixed itself in the thread...... apostrophes come out as & a p o s ; s (I have left the spaces so it isn't automatically corrected in the blog)

The version of Skype the other person was using is 2.0.0.6.

Screen share works great! I'm waiting anxiously for the reverse to be available as well - being able to see Windows users' screens would be very handy (and mostly obviate my need for GoToMeeting). Kudos!

Hey, When are you going to get games for Mac users??? I've been waiting to have this feature so I can play with my friends who have PC's.

So far, I've enjoyed the Beta version for Mac. A few improvements would be the ability to control another screen through screen sharing. Also, the main skype window can't be resized from left to right very far. In other words, I can't make the window any skinnier. That's highly annoying.

Thanks guys.

What´s the plan for screen sharing for windows users? Will it happen in the near future?

The video quality in this version compared to 2.7 is really bad.
All my contact buddys see me pixelated.
Also I miss the feature to connect with Port 80 alternatively, so i can use skype in the university with cisco VPN Client, because all the other ports are blocked.

@khemistryx You can set the port in Skype > Preferences > Advanced

Screen sharing is excellent... but the beta version does not work with my iSight camera. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? And yes, the iSight camera still works with other apps (e.g., iChat).

@iannucci sorry to hear that your iSight isn’t working with Skype as expected – if you go to Skype > Preferences > Video, can you see the video preview there?

How do you turn off this last.fm contacts notification function in the new mac beta? This is absolutely infuriating. Very un-Skype.

To be honest I had hoped for better video quality. When I tried this between my Mac Book and a Win2k PC, the view of my Mac screen on the PC was rather blurred and I could not see the mouse pointer. IMHO not ready to replace GoTo Meeting yet, but I'm sure you'll fix it soon.

Any news on Mac Users Becoming Skype Prime Advisor's?

urgh, yeah. my friend is having me use the skype beta because I'm having some problems with my internet and he's trying to help me, but he needs me to share something with him and my share button is un-clickable.

@sily52 make sure you're using the latest beta, and let me know if the problem's still happening.

Hello!

I have a bug to report for the Skype MacOS X beta (2.8.0.438).

Does someone know where can I report it (if I can) ?

Cheers

@amailp you can either leave a comment here, or, if you’re more technically inclined, head over to our public issue tracker

Is there any estimate on when the Mac Beta 2.8 will become a full release version?

On a lot of software, I don't have any problem using a Beta version. However, I can't afford to have a flakey Skype or even a Skype that might be flakey. As it is, the 2.7 version has to be quit and restarted every morning, in order to remain stable throughout the day. Once it is restarted, it remains very stable for at least 12 hours of heavy usage.

2.8 sounds like it will be great and I look forward to using it, when it becomes an official released product. I'm just wondering if there is an estimated time frame for this.

I don't think that anyone will hold Skype to any estimate. After all, a certain company in Redmond, WA routinely announces the "impending" release of new product versions 2 or 3 years before the product is actually released. So, any estimates closer than that will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

@john_gaver we don’t tend to preannounce things, I’m afraid. But rest assured – we’ll release the Gold version when it’s ready for general consumption

Love Beta 2.8! I can compare it to your Windows 4.1 , too, since I just switched from a PC with Windows to an IMac. I love them both, and am grateful to you for creating Screen Sharing. On Mac it seems especially cool. Its "full screen" option looks a little better. We see they can see me and a major swath of my desktop, so they don't loose the sense of presence that Skype so brilliantly creates for us as we communicate over computer.

What I WISH I could do on Mac but can't, what I could do with 4.1 on Windows that was invaluable, though, was EDIT text I'd already "sent." If you can Skype's Mac version to do that, you'll find us all indebted to you. (You know, lots of mistakes get sent by all of us that we wish we could take back. Those lucky Windows users can!) If you can fix that pronto, I'd be eternally grateful.

And not as critically, if you could ever come up with a way that Mac and Windows users could play games together, the world would really be able to play together -- a happier, more harmonious place, like some 1960s Coke commercial.

Much thanks to you. SkypeBeta is beautiful.

@eahorwit you can edit – just right-click a message and choose Edit Message or hit ↑

Hello

I love screen sharing, but I am really missing the ability to take over and control the other computer, like you can with iChat. Is that ever going to be a possibility?

Please make it so :>)

Todd

I have mac tiger system and new skype share screening works great. However my friend has mac leopard and when he views my screen in sharing he can't make it bigger. There is no place on the bottom right to adjust the size. And when he clicks full screen it is horrible quality. Anyone else have this problem?

I've noticed with version 2.8.0.659 that on two different PPC Macs w/10.5x that the video sharing will freeze at regular intervals, somewhere between 30 seconds and one minute. The caller on the other end gets a frozen picture, which can be fixed by toggling the video share button until it happens again. Haven't seen this problem on Intel Macs at all.

Same (very irratating) bug as brucemiracle, I have a PPC with OS X 10.4, and the same 2.8.0659 version of Skype. Could it be fixed or shall we install the previous version ??? thx

Each time I get a chat message I would like my Mac to speak the text of the message. I see "@" speaks the name of the sender. How do I tell Skype to speak the message itself?

I am trying to upgrade to the latest version. I keep getting an insufficient priveleges error which means I have to delete the old skype from my applications folder and then replace it. When I go to delete the old skype from applications folder I receive an error 43. Can someone help? What do I do at this point?

I love the screen sharing option with the new version of Skype. The only problem or drawback which will hold me back on using this feature is ability to give control to the other person. It is very important to me as sometimes when I work remotely with iChat I have lots of issues in getting the other person to share my screen. This works great but I cannot use it. Looking forward to having this feature in Skype. Great job you guys! Skype is rocking. Love it

Love the new version. I desperately need the ability to control the remote machine. Actually it's the mother-in-laws mac. I upgraded over the weekend (she is a 2 hour trip away) and after getting it home the printer doesn't work. Talking through the support discussion remote control fashion isn't a good use of my time!