Gaps continue to close in MS’s messaging platform as fanbois dream of new devices
Roundup In a week that saw developer goodness aplenty in Connect(); and Microsoft face a Chromium future, there were some other adventures in Redmond you may have missed.
Microsoft continued to make good on its promise to keep closing the gaps between the much-beloved (at least, beloved once people realised it was going away) Skype Classic client and the more modern beast.
The latest significant events (for Skype Insiders at least) were the return of the Away state and the ability to minimise the thing to the Windows 10 System Tray.
The Away state, which can be set manually by the user, will bring a smile to the faces of at least some of the faithful. A new state, Recently Active, will be set automatically if the user has wandered off after having been active less than an hour ago.
Microsoft has stated that users will also be able to set the time period before the Recently Active flag goes up.
The Skype team has shown Windows 10 Skype Insiders some love in the form of a System Tray icon for Skype, with a notification badge for unread messages (although just as an icon at present rather than a guilt-inducing count).
Both updates are currently very much Insider-only but, judging how rapidly recent Insider tweaks have made it to the big time, should be in the hands of the majority of customers before long.
Anyone who has endured a Microsoft keynote of late will know the company is all about accessibility these days, be it Xbox inclusivity or adapting its core OS.
