14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Microsoft has officially announced the availability of an updated flavor of its Skype application for Android devices, aimed at providing users with a brand-new feature that will make finding new people on Skype much easier than before.
The new iteration of Skype, available for download as version 5.0, allows users to connect the application on their smartphones with their address book.
Courtesy of that, it will become easier than ever to discover contacts you already know on Skype, Microsoft notes in a recent post on the Skype blog.
However, it appears that you won’t get the possibility to automatically associate Skype with your address book, as you will also need to verify your phone number, something that could take a few months.
“After you download the latest Android update, in the coming months you’ll be prompted to verify your phone number,” the aforementioned blog post reads.
“From there, the app will automatically look for contact matches between Skype and your address book. When matches are found, you’ll see new contacts show up in your Skype people list.”
According to Microsoft, the Skype contacts list will automatically expand as people you have in your address book join the network.
Additionally, the company explains that, even after you connect Skype with their address book, they “won’t spam your friends.”
“For your privacy, you can easily choose whether we keep looking for your friends and whether they can find you from the settings,” the company says in the release notes for the application (in Google Play Store).
Another enhancement in the new application iteration is aimed at those who use a Microsoft account to sign in to Skype, as the new feature will also connect to their address book from other Microsoft services.
Thus, they will be able to connect with even more of their existing contacts on Skype regardless of whether they come from the address book, Outlook.com or Windows 8.
“As we add this new feature to Android, we remain dedicated to making sure you’re in total control of your Skype experience,” Microsoft also adds.
Thus, in the Skype settings menu, users will be able to choose whether they want their address book contacts to be automatically added to Skype or not.
Moreover, the Redmond-based software giant explains that users’ numbers will not be made public, and that users will also be able not only to modify the phone number associated with their profile, but also to deactivate it completely, provided that they don’t want to be found by it.
In the coming months, the feature will arrive on other mobile platforms out there as well, it seems. In the meantime, however, Android users can head over to the Google Play store to download the new Skype 5.0 for their devices.
