It’s been quite some time since Microsoft teased the Skype Universal Windows Platform app for Windows 10 Mobile. Back in April, the company announced that following a release of the app on Windows 10 Insider build 14316, a preview of the UWP app would be released “soon” on mobile devices though the Skype team has yet to deliver.
While we’re all waiting for this app to bring a much better Skype experience on Windows 10 Mobile devices, Windows Central has managed to get their hands on a leaked version of the app with the help of Jeremy “snickler” Sinclair from the mobile software development community XDA. The ripped app is available right now on an XDA forum thread, though it will only work on devices running Windows 10 Mobile Redstone builds. Also, be aware that it’s an appX file that needs to be sideloaded on your device.
According to Windows Central, the app has still some rough edges: actionable notifications are a miss, and more important it doesn’t seem possible to use the app to make or receive Skype calls as of now. You can see some screenshots below:
With so many security risks today, we don’t recommend that our readers install leaked apps. For now, we’ll note that our colleagues at Windows Central consider the app “a huge improvement over the current 8.1 model,” and we’re not really surprised as the same app on Windows 10 Insider builds is shaping up to be great as well.
Now that the app has leaked in a usable state, we hope Microsoft will release it pretty soon for Windows Insiders. Let us know in the comments if you’re looking forward to using this new Skype app on your Windows phone.
