Last November Skype released 5.0 beta for Mac, saying it brought with it a revamped look and feel as well as simplifying navigation and offering a more native Mac experience.

Instead of offering a better version of the online chat application, the update was met with disdain from most Mac users.

Among them was Xero boss Rod Drury, who Tweeted, "Skype for Mac beta is the worst redesign I can think of. Stuns me how such an important update for a huge market is a design disaster.”

Since then Skype has tried to calm the Mac critics on more than one occasion.

Fast forward to April, 2011 and the company has admitted defeat by releasing the previous version of Skype (2.8) to its website for download.

"The shift in user experience from 2.8 to 5.X is a significant one, and we acknowledge that this was a lot to have delivered to existing users in a single update,” said Rick Osterloh, Head of Consumer Product Management at Skype.

Despite the criticism of 5.0, Osterloh is adamant of its advantages.

"We believe that the 5.X platform offers significant advantages over the previous versions for the majority of our users, and this is borne out in the usage and opinion data we’re seeing from the Mac user base as a whole.

"However, there’s still plenty of work for us to do and we know that not all of you prefer 5.X. To that end, we’ve taken a comprehensive look at the feedback from the last couple of months and identified two broad patterns.”

Osterloh described the two groups of users:

• Some of you want to be able to multitask more within Skype
• Some of you want to be able to multitask more between Skype and other apps

"What are we doing about this? Two things. First, we’re making Skype 2.8 available for download from our website, and it’ll be available for the foreseeable future. Note that it doesn’t let you make (or participate in) group video calls, nor does it contain all of the performance improvements we’ve made in 5.X. But the last thing we want is to prevent you from using software you prefer,” said Osterloh.

You can read the full update here.

Will you revert back to the previous version (if you haven't already)?