If you listen to today's podcast, Rafe makes the good point that my previous ranting about Skype's performance on older handsets isn't going to be addressed by Microsoft, since it (and the Skype team) are developing for what's on sale now, what's going to be on sale next year, and most of all adding new features and capabilities. Skype on older hardware isn't broken completely, after all, Rafe said, so there's little urgency in 'fixing' it. In any case, we have a new Skype update today that backs up Rafe's theory, by providing new features and not changing the app's behaviour under multitasking at all. I'll just go off and sulk somewhere....

Last covered here on AAWP, we now have, from the Skype blog:

"Today we’re pleased to release Skype 2.22, which brings location sharing to Skype for the first time!  Location sharing lets you have an even better chat experience on the go.  Seeing friends or family and want to tell them where to meet you?  Simply use this new feature to send them a Bing map of your location, pinpointing exactly where you are.

Here’s the full list of new features:

• Location Sharing. Click the ‘+’ icon in a chat and select ‘share location’ to share your location with the people in your conversation
• Save Picture. To save a photo: tap the image to enlarge it, then tap for more menu options and select ‘save photo’
• Notification Controls for Individual Conversations. In a chat, tap for more options and select ‘notifications’. Here you can choose to turn notifications for that conversation on or off, so you’re only notified about incoming messages if you want to be."

Very useful enhancements. The location sharing is potentially a life saver - there are many other ways to share your location from most smartphones, but they all involve multiple apps or services - having location sharing built-into an instant message system that you're already using, in real time, is very useful indeed.

The selective notifications for specific chats will also be useful in small companies for which Skype group IM is the natural 'back channel' for coordination (we've used this at All About Towers before).

The Skype team do encourage feedback here (rest assured they know about my rant). In the meantime, update in the Store on your phone or grab Skype from here. It's part of the platform and yet not always present on every device (yet)!