Skype Will No Longer Be Supported on Older Android and Windows Phones

Skype has been incrementally transitioning away from peer-to-peer and into the cloud for some time now, and Microsoft’s recent announcement that Skype is dropping support for Windows Phone 8 and older Android phones is in keeping with this trend. Microsoft acquired the messaging app back in 2011 for a whopping $8.5 billion.

The Verge reports that the app will continue to be supported on iOS 8.0, Android 4.03, and Windows 10 Mobile phones. This means that users stuck with older models will no longer receive updates to the app, which will eventually render it obsolete and defunct and inevitably frustrate some users.

Engadget reports that Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Skype and Skype Business, Gurdeep Pall, openly admitted that Skype had encountered many unforeseen and frustrating issues recently such as unsynced messages and delayed notifications. In addition, The Verge noted that a host of other annoying issues that plagued the communications platform included improperly connected microphones, the inability to make calls, and other UX bugs.

He attributed some of these malfunctions to the unevenness of Skype’s transition from P2P to cloud servers and expressed his hopes that the completion of the efforts would mark the end of such issues. “Knowing the impact of these issues for our users, we fix these issues as quickly as we can,” Pall said, according to The Verge.