I've been primarily a Mac user for the past 8 years, but I'm not a Mac "fan boy." I don't defend every decision that the company makes; I'm not one of these people who thinks Verizon was somehow a lesser or even inferior cellular provider because they didn't carry the iPhone for the first three-and-a-half years of its existence.

I'm extremely bothered by the creeping in of Apple's sandboxing requirements, trying to force everyone to use iCloud, and just the looming theme of Apple knows best which seems more pronounced than before. I would seriously consider a good Lenovo Thinkpad or Dell Latitude for my next computer. However, I am a Mac user now and this will likely be my primary OS in the near future. On behalf of a lot of people in the Mac community, I would kindly like to ask the developers at Skype to stop giving us the shaft.

Skype had a great Mac product. In January 2011, they took the beta label off of version 5.0 aiming to achieve greater parity with their Windows version. Up until this point the current official version of Skype for Mac was 2.8.0.866. It looked very different from the Windows version, but it was friendly looking and something that Mac users could relate to. It allowed IM's, voice and video calls, but most importantly, sported a compact contact list and instant message window.

This might be a shocker, but it presented self like many other IM clients for both Windows and Mac. Yahoo Messenger (Mac and Windows) offers a relatively skinny contacts list and a separate conversation window with tabs, Adium (a universal IM client for Mac) does the same, Trillian (universal client for Mac and Windows) also offers this timeless setup. It's not rocket science; its a familiar trusted model.

With the release of Skype 5.0 for Mac and subsequent updates, which put it at version 5.8.0.865 as of June 14th, we still have a deeply flawed product. One only needs to look at the comments after the Mac related posts and the slew of complaints on the Mac Community (forum) on the official Skype Support Network to see the number of customers there are. Now that Apple is requiring all apps to be digitally signed to be compliant with the release of their new OS 10.8 "Mountain Lion", available in July, we are worried that version 2.8 will not function properly in the new OS. There may be installation issues and as well as performance concerns.

On behalf of a lot of people in the Mac community, I would kindly like to ask the developers at Skype to stop giving us the shaft.

When 5.8.0.865 was released just a few weeks ago, the official announcement claimed that it was built for OS 10.8. However, if this is the direction that Skype is going, why do they still offer 2.8.0.866 as a download? They could have just forced all of us to eat our lumps and stay with the latest generation of 5.x. Some on their forums claim we are being forced to suffer because Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 and they are hellbent on infuriating us Mac users. As far as I am concerned, that is a conspiracy theory and I am not going to take it that far.

Lots of Skype users don't merely use it as a free service, we are paid subscribers. Whether we use the group video conferencing feature or screen sharing (the later recently became a Premium-only feature), we pay anywhere from $9 a month to slightly less on an annual basis. All we are looking for is some respect. We would like version 2.8 to be continued into future development and released as version 2.9, Skype legacy version - Mac OS 10.8 compatible. If Skype wants to make this a Premium only download, with a promise of only one year of future development, we would take that. It would mark the re-kindling of a relationship that has soured for the past 18 months.

We want the simplicity of our interface back, a request that would not make the Mac version the Picasso of instant messenger clients, this would represent more of an industrial norm -- just like the programs of competing services. Mac based businesses would still like to be able to transfer calls like they could in version 2.8. Skype can keep their advanced features in the "new" version because those of us who love version 2.8 aren't clamoring for them.

This request is not insane. In fact, there is a precedent for it. Quicken for Mac was once a very popular program, however they decided not to roll out new versions and from 2006 to 2012, Quicken 2007 the latest available. However, it was written for Power PC processors and OS 10.6 was the last Mac OS allowed to run the legacy applications. Mac users kept beating on Intel's door for an answer. Quicken Essentials for Mac, released in 2010, was deemed an unworthy and not as fully featured successor (just like Skype ver. 5.0). When Mac OS 10.7 Lion was released last July, Quicken 2005 - 2007 users were forced to either stick with OS 10.6 or switch to a new personal finance program.

Finally the prayers of the Mac community were answered, and Quicken 2007 - Lion compatible edition, was released in March 2012. Skype -- if you're listening -- this is our prayer too!

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