Skype 5.0 For Mac Is Out Of Beta With Some Big Changes

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Okay, Mac users: prepare to be happy in a mixed-blessing sort of way. Skype 5.0 has just emerged for your system of choice, and it’s lost some valuable features in the departure from beta, but gained a few as well.

The big news on this one is the loss of free group calling. This is replaced by a video group calling application–which would be a pretty sweet step up under most any circumstances–except for the glaring fact that you’ll need to pay for it. It’s free for the first week, but once you’re nice and hooked, you’ll be shelling out either $4.99 for the day pass or $8.99 if you want a month at a time. Group video calling supports up to ten users at once, which is pretty impressive no matter how you slice it.

You’ll get plenty of other features here too, ones you won’t even have to pay for: you’ll get a call control bar, searches on your chat content (if you’re looking for some specific part of a previous conversation, you’ll be able to jump right to it), integration with OS X Address Book, and a slimmed-down interface (reportedly, there were a lot of complaints about Skype taking up too much monitor real estate) and floating contact monitor.

Strangely enough, notably absent from the Mac version (you can actually get this one on the Windows version) is the ability to connect to Facebook newsfeeds from Skype.

Most of the rest of Skype is quite intact–voice chat with other users, free one-on-one video chat, instant messaging, and SkypeOut service (it’s a pay service, but wildly cheaper than the alternative) for phone calls anywhere.

Reportedly, though, some users are still unhappy and prefer Skype’s older 2.8 release, which is somewhat odd, but apparently it uses less monitor space than even the new 5.0, so bear that in mind if monitor real estate is important to you.

You can pick up Skype for download right now, though your bill will depend on the services you want. Most of it’s actually free, so you can keep in touch with all the people you want to keep in touch with.