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If you’re the member of the family that everyone turns to when they need their tech issues fixed, you might want to go grab the latest beta of Skype for your mobile phone. Microsoft is adding screen sharing to both the iOS and Android apps, so you can see what’s going on with your parents’ smartphone woes.
Finally, right? I mean whenever something goes wrong on your parents’ smartphone, you get a phone call usually, making you have to talk them through often tricky troubleshooting steps without being able to see what they’re actually doing. Even worse, they’re usually holding their handset up to their ear, making the whole process far harder than it should be. Now, they’ll be able to call you on Skype, start sharing their screen and let you see what’s what, allowing you to guide them through the process.
That’s fantastic, especially for Android phones which often call the same functions different names in the Settings app. Microsoft suggests that it’d be useful during meetings, to share Powerpoint presentations (although who uses their phone to do those?) or the not-skeevy-at-all-honest action of sharing your swipes on dating apps. I’m sure your Mom really wants to join in on your swiping right sprees…
This is just the latest in a long line of upgrades that Microsoft has given to Skype in recent months
Now you can chat to up to 50 people at once (why?), blur the background of your video chats so you never have to tidy up your apartment (yay!), have access to OneDrive integrations, on-the-fly transcription and subtitles (amazing), and a revamped Skype for Web that’s actually useful (depending on which browser you use it on).
If you want the screen sharing functionality, you’ll have to be a Skype Insider. Signing up for the program gets you into the beta program, which is the only way to get the new feature right now. A Skype team member told Gizmodo that the screen sharing feature should be rolled out to the main app sometime this month, just in case you don’t want to run beta software.
What do you think? Interested in using this new feature on Skype? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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