Monday, August 8, 2011

Skype for Mac update adds Lion support, HD calls


Skype this morning put out a new update to its Mac client that brings compatibility with Apple's Mac OS X Lion, as well as HD video calling.

The jump to support Lion comes some three weeks after the release of Apple's latest Mac OS X iteration.

Skype's before and after of its HD video calling.

As for the HD video calling feature, Skype first brought that in a beta to Windows users in January of last year. The new HD quality can take advantage of FaceTime HD cameras that ship with Apple's newer iMacs and MacBook Pros. Users need to have an upload/download speed of 1.5Mbps to make use of the high definition stream, Skype says.

Video calling has become an increasingly important aspect of Skype, with the company expanding the feature to a number of mobile devices. Last week, for instance, the company bought video call support to some 17 new Android devices, adding to the number that could begin taking advantage of it in June. Video calling is also the headlining feature in Skype's recently released iPad app, which uses the dual cameras in the most recent model as an alternative to Apple's built in FaceTime feature

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