Find the best programs like FaceTime for Mac. 3 alternatives to choose: Skype, Whatsapp and Viber.

A sad reality of owning older Macs running old version of OS X is the steady ticking time bomb of obsolescence. For Mac owners still running OS X 10.5 Leopard or earlier versions of the Mac's operating system, there has been another casualty of time's passing -- the ability to use Skype. Users on Skype's began about being locked out of the service without warning this week. The issue was impacting users some users using OS X 10.7.5 Lion, as well as OS X 10.5 Leopard. We no longer support anything lower than OS X 10.6. Hi everyone, there seems to be a lot of confusion around this.

First, let me assure you that no-one is locking you out from using Skype on OS X 10.6 - 10.8 and there is no need to upgrade to Mavericks or (the new OS X now in dev preview) Yosemite if you don't want to. All OS X 10.6 - 10.8 users can head over to and get version 6.15.

This is a very solid release and you can still use all of the main features without any problems (i.e. Group video, group chats, screen sharing etc). Note that you should only use the link above, it serves you with a correct update for your OS version, direct links (to DMG files) can work, but are not guaranteed to do so.

That said, we still encourage you to stay up to date, meaning upgrading to Mavericks and getting the latest Skype. Hope this clarifies things a bit. If you have problems updating, please let us know in this thread and I'll try to help you. -Rene For those people who are running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard through OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, you'll need to use Skype version 6.15 for compatibility.

Those of you running 10.9 or testing 10.10 can use the newer Skype version 6.19. Granted most Mac users won't notice the change, but for people working on older machines, upgrading may not be an option. Are you a Skype user who has been locked out of your account because you haven't updated your Mac?

Let us know in the replies if you'll be updating to continue being able to access the service.

Calling an iPad or iPhone is easy, once your contacts are added via your Apple ID. Early 2013 macbook pro specs. Image quality is excellent, and the display is pleasantly free of distractions. If the iPhone is rotated, the image also changes on FaceTime for Mac, from landscape to portrait and back. All round, it's a very smooth, simple and comfortable video call experience. Although much will depend on your internet connection, the quality of calling on Facetime is generally better than Skype. FaceTime is not perfect though.

While integration with your contacts on the iPhone makes perfect sense, on the Mac it's less useful and some users may find contacts get duplicated or confused on their Mac. This is complicated by the fact that you can't add contacts to FaceTime directly, but have to do it via Address Book so if you don't use Address Book, you'll have to start. It would also be nice to have FaceTime open without constantly seeing video of yourself! By Anonymous FaceTime is the best video chat application. FaceTime is by far the best way to video call somebody owning an iDevice.

It offers a far greater quality and stability than competitors like Skype, especially in low-speed networks, FaceTime remains clear while Skype gets all pixels and the sound gets delayed. Given a medium network strength and a FAST internet connection, FaceTime offers the much clearer image and sound experience. I have now been using and testing FaceTime for more than 1-and-a-half years for several hours daily (my girlfriend lives in Australia whilst I am from Germany), thus am honest calling FaceTime clearly superior to Skype.