Well, I got the new Windows Live Messenger Beta client at work yesterday, and at home today. On the whole, it appears more broken, because the new feature I like the most, display contacts by “First Last Name” is not used when it starts. So if you have it set, you have to change to some other setting and toggle back to see the names.
But the good feature is that the feedback form now works, so I can complain/comment via that instead of moaning on my blog.
The build number is “Build 8.0.0689.00_Branches”, branches seems an odd name for a branch. I wonder if they are sending different build to different people to see how they react.
Other things I’ve noticed.
The icons have all changed yet again. Gosh their graphic designers keep busy.
The annoying “details getting bigger as you mouse over” appears to be gone, now you have the option of “all small” or “all big”. I’m guessing only people with two contacts are going to use the “all big”, as it wastes so much desktop. Also odd is that people who have set picture (inbuilt), seem to get the new default blue person picture, unless they have used a custom picture.
I get the feeling there really isn’t any innovative things to add, so they tweak the UI continually (making it more busy, bigger and cluttered), it makes me use GTalk for contacts that are duel listed.
Sigh, I still managed a good moan. I wonder how the developers on that team feel about going to work each day.