They were bought by Atlassian recently and they used it to replace the HipChat video/audio chat function.
I'm not sure yet whether you can also use it with the jitsi desktop clients (https://jitsi.org/) seamlessly, but it'd make sense :)
Just saw some news that they also enabled calling into meet.jit.si conferences by phone (https://jitsi.org/news/telephony-support-on-meet-jit-si/) so that's also a bonus point if you liked Skype.
Though it is business focused.
1. There is a free plan, but limited.
2. Android, iPhone, Mac, and PC clients that work well.
Occasional notification syncing issues. That's about the worse of it.
3. I don't know; I haven't used Skype in years. Better than Lync and Polycom.
4. Yep.
Signal actually looks great, but their Mac/PC client has been in beta since 2015 and isn't linked from the homepage -- I had to dig it up on their blog. Also, video chat has been in beta since March 2017. It's not clear if their beta non-phone client supports the beta video chat. Still, I'm digging their encryption.
I don't mean to shit over your suggestions, I really am looking for something better. But so far, nothing seems like a clear winner.
Video chat actually came out of beta in March [0]. The beta was released in February.
I personally don't know anybody using it past early 2016. It's all Whatsapp, Messenger, Telegram (but many people don't know what it is) and Skype on the desktop. Snapchat among the kids.
Not really here in Germany. iOS has about 20% of the market, Android the other 80%.
macOS is at about 8%.
Anecdotally, even discounting that I have neither, of the 20 or so people I'd realistically want to chat with (friends and family), two have iPhones and one has a mac.
Plus: What happens when they switch? Or when I want to switch?
Also, I don't really want to use multiple applications.
In the US, many people have the iPhones and iPads. For professionals worldwide at least in developed countries, it makes sense to use iPhones which are far, far more secure than Android platforms, especially when taking into account total cost of ownership, the monthly fee for cell service on a high quality network.
In professional settings, the Mac is becoming a more popular platform, IBM is converting many Thinkpads over to Macs.
Many in Europe, even the young, smoke cigarettes which are very costly with the taxes. I'd suggest for both health reasons and using money for better purposes to quit smoking cigarettes and use the money for iPhones (and Macs).
A pack of Marlboros in Germany is about $8 per pack according to Wikipedia.
My daily cost for being on the Verizon (top cell provider, esp in NYC) network and having Verizon yearly upgrade for latest iPhone is $5 per day. Upgrading to latest MacBook 15" Pro from recent model is about $2 to $3 per day.
The Macs, iPhones, and iPads play much better together as an ecosystem.
Edit: Just to clarify, here's what I'm looking for:
1. Free plan; available everywhere in the world (I have family outside the US).
2. Both Mac and PC clients that are actually good.
3. Video chat quality (including noise filtering and such) that matches or exceeds what Skype can do.
4. IM-like client that supports text, voice, and video chat. This disqualifies business-type solutions that are geared around groups pre-scheduling meetings. I just want to see who's online and send them an IM or video chat request.