Microsoft makes useful changes to Skype and Skype Qik for iOS

Microsoft’s focus on iOS isn’t wavering. Yesterday, not long after introducing its impressive Office Lens to the App Store, the company announced updates for both Skype and Skype Qik, making a number of useful changes to both applications.

First up, the Microsoft-owned Skype VoIP (voice-over-IP) app is seeing a bunch of new languages added to the application, meaning our readers in a selection of countries will be able to enjoy localization in Skype. The supported languages are Croatian, Slovak, Catalan, Vietnamese, Thai, Hindi, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Turkish, and Estonian, and localization is dubbed as arriving “within the coming week.”

More major changes are reaching Skype Qik, however, with version 1.5.0 of the group messaging app. Now, users can enjoy eight new effects which can be used while recording your videos “to make them more fun and playful,” Microsoft explains in a recent blog post. Here, the company continues:

Once you open the viewfinder, you can select an effect to apply to your video. You can even switch from one to another while you’re recording to include multiple effects in one video message. Choose from favorites like mirror, x-ray and Minecraft (a staff favorite that makes you look 8-bit) or go crazy with hearts or snow.

On iOS, users can tap the “magic wand” icon in order to reveal live effects in Skype Qik.

Though Skype itself hasn’t yet received the aforementioned additional language support, Skype Qik’s update is already live on the App Store (1.5.0). You can download both apps free of charge, and each one is optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch only.

Microsoft’s updated Skype Qik is available now, while the updated Skype app is incoming.

As mentioned, yesterday was a significant day for Microsoft’s App Store presence. The company unveiled Office Lens for iOS, a Scanbot-competing application that allows users to capture digital scans of paper documents, convert them to searchable PDF files, or even create Word (.docx) or PowerPoint (.pptx) files from scanned images. Significantly, the app performs OCR (optical character recognition) on files at no extra cost; the app is entirely free to download, and in this respect it’s unlike similar applications for iOS.

We’re watching Microsoft’s presence on iOS grow with great interest. For now, the updated Skype Qik is indeed available on the App Store, and an update for Skype is due to arrive in the coming week.