Microsoft and Apple may not traditionally go hand-in-hand, but in the case of Skype, the two are a match made in heaven. When Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for 8.5 billion dollars, they knew they we buying a company with great potential. Little did they know to the extent of the potential Skype would yield. Even though Skype is a Microsoft application, its popularity on Apple devices continues to grow. The popularity of Skype is shown by the sheer number of downloads on Apple mobile products: 120 million in the past few years.

In recent months, Skype added a new feature to allow users to share photos via Skype. Since its introduction, more than twenty million photos have been transferred through Skype from Apple devices. Skype is rated as one of the top ten free apps that can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store.

Due to the high rate of success Skype is having on iOS devices, they are merging the highly touted Live Messenger of Microsoft into the Skype programming. This new merger will allow users to be able to log into their Microsoft Live account to access Skype and transfer their contacts from Live Messenger, Hotmail, and Outlook into their contact list on Skype.

Another new feature on Skype will allow users to edit sent messages, in order to correct any misspellings or typographical errors. Anyone using Skype who signed in through their Microsoft Live account will be able to send messages to people on Live Messenger from their Skype page. Just to be able to add a little bit of fun for Skype users on iOS, Skype has added emoticons to their new messaging system. Those with the newer iOS models using the retina display technology will have the added feature of animated emoticons.

With the increased usage of smartphones and tablets in today’s society and the popularity of Skype, these new additions to Skype will not only make using Skype on Apple devices a more practical and useful experience, but it will make it a more enjoyable and fun experience for the user.