It looks like Microsoft is killing its Skype for Windows 10 app and will replace it with the standard desktop Skype app instead.
There’s no official word of the change—which appears to mimic what Microsoft’s doing with OneNote—but it was first spotted by the Italian tech blog Aggiornamenti Lumia, which tweeted that the Skype Preview App has suddenly been replaced with the standard desktop Skype app in the Microsoft Store.
“[Microsoft] obliterated every good thing the UWP [app] still had,” one Twitter user commented on the changes. “No more People app integration. No more sync with Outlook. No more automatic [Microsoft account] sign-in. No more app pausing/working in [the] background. No more good-looking title bar.”
Also missing: inline replies in notifications and Share integration. But I’m not sure these missing features mean much, as many could return as the desktop app is improved.
As you may know, Microsoft maintains multiple Skype clients, and Windows 10 users typically use the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app version that ships with that operating system. But Microsoft has been testing a Preview version in the Microsoft Store that represents the next major evolution of the client. To date, the Skype Preview apps had been based on UWP, but Microsoft is no longer backing that as its desktop app platform of the future. So the backstepping from UWP continues, as expected.
