Skype now supports up to 50 participants in a group call, outpacing their rivals – TechCrunch



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Skype takes advantage of Apple's difficulties with the FaceTime group to draw attention to its own group calling features. Today, the company announced that it doubles the number of people who can participate simultaneously in a group audio or video call. It now supports up to 50 people at a time, up from 25 previously.

With the extended support of more participants, Skype exceeds the capabilities of other popular email applications such as WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, and Instagram, and rivals more directly with professional calling solutions such as Zoom. for example, which supports up to 100 or even 1,000 participants, depending on the plan, with up to 49 webcams displayed in its gallery view.

Skype is not as robust, but it offers something between a business platform and mainstream apps.

Skype also uses Facebook Messenger, which allows 50 people to participate in an online chat, but limits the display to only the speaker after more than half a dozen people. On Skype, participants are displayed as bubbles at the top of the screen. and the end user can choose the stream on which he wants to focus in a multi-pane main window.

Notably, the Skype update also allows it to stay ahead of Apple's FaceTime, which now supports up to 32 people for group calls from iOS 12.1.

However, the FaceTime group has had some problems in recent months. A teenager discovered a security bug that allowed users to listen before calls were made. Apple disabled the feature, fixed the bug, and re-enabled the FaceTime group with the February version of iOS 12.1.4. But the update also introduced a change in the operation of the application because Required fields Users must first call at least three people before they can use the Add Person button.

Skype, on the other hand, simplifies the start of video calls with the new version.

For groups of less than 25 participants, you can call the entire group at the same time, the company explains.

And for large calls, Skype has added a notification option to replace the default ringtone. This means that participants receive a less obstructive ping type alert to join the call.

These features were already tested in March, but they are currently deployed on the public via different platforms.

To use these new features, you must download the latest version of Skype.

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