If you use third party accessories in conjunction with your Skype account beware. Your time is limited to how much longer you are going to be able to keep using them. By December 2013, your devices or applications may not work anymore.

Microsoft is making changes to the inner workings of the software to make it better on mobile devices. The rub is that because of these changes to the programming some of the features will either stop working entirely or will lose some of its functionality. That means if you use a VoIP accessory to do something like record an interview or podcast then you may have to figure something else out to do your recording.

Supposedly, Microsoft isn’t doing this to stop the use of third party applications and hardware it is just trying to make Skype more mobile friendly. As it works now instant messages sent with Skype are anything but instant. The hope is that with the change in programming, the messages will be instant, as promised. The programming also should improve call quality as well.

This is the first major update since Skype was introduced in 2004 and currently it doesn’t really support the mobile side, which is something Microsoft wants to change.

[via Endgadget]