Skype for Modern Windows 2.5

Microsoft this week released a minor new release of Skype for Modern Windows that improves how this quickly-evolving mobile version of the app works with your contacts. I may have my issues with Skype overall, but it's interesting to see what's possible when they start from scratch and build something new from the ground up.

According to Microsoft, this new update adds the following changes:

New Add a Contact button. If you navigate to the People view, you can now more easily add a new contact using the Add a Contact button (shown below on the right). Just type in a name, email address, Microsoft account or Skype ID.

See who's available. The Modern version of Skype has always offered the ability to filter the People view to show only those contacts who are currently online, but this was previously available only to those who had 20 or more contacts. Now it's available to all users. You do so via the "All" and "Available" toggles in the top left of the People view.

Silencio, por favor. In a long overdue change, Skype no longer plays IM sounds for the current conversation. This change does not affect sounds for new instant messages from other people, and if you miss it, you can add it back in Settings, Options (at the bottom).

Skype for Modern Windows is available for free in the Windows Store and works with Windows 8.x and Windows RT.