Skype has just updated its Android app, and the new software feels an awful lot like Windows Phone. We’ve seen Microsoft attempt to take advantage of its Skype ownership before, most obviously when it merged Skype accounts with its own, and today’s redesign of its popular VoIP app is nothing if not a subtle attempt to remind us all that there is indeed a worthy alternative to Android.

Sporting a distinct ‘metro-style’ look, Skype’s new design is said to put “conversations first”, with a focus on putting all of the important functions at the user’s fingertips the moment they open the app. Upon firing up the app, Skype throws up a list of your most recent conversations, and by tapping on one you can quickly open up a new conversation window and pick up where you left off, whist other options including voice call and video chat can be accessed with a single tap.

Upon navigating to the home screen, you’ll come across three separate tabs that allow you to access your most recent conversations, your contacts and ‘favorities’. The actual dialogue trees have also been given a makeover and look cleaner than before, with sender and receiver messages differentiated by different shades of blue. Another new feature is the small, circular crops of each contact’s profile picture in the chat window, while the app contains the usual range of emoticons for when you want to express different emotions. It’s also possible to attach video messages and files from your Android device, features that are now available on virtually all Skype apps.

You’ll notice the circular profile pictures when you place a call too. Here, the design is slightly flatter than before, while at the bottom of the screen there are three icons that allow you to answer a video call, use audio only, or reject the call.

Officially, the update is known as Skype version 4.0, although Microsoft claims that it’s essentially a brand new app that’s been “rebuilt from the ground up to make it faster and more reliable.” But although it looks different, it’s essentially the same thing as before with the same kind of functionality – whether or not it truly is ‘”faster and more reliable” remains to be seen.

Saying that, Skype was overdue an update what with the multitude of messaging apps fighting it out on Android these days. Viber, WhatsApp, Cubie and Kakao Talk are just a few of its emerging rivals, while Google continues to push its Hangouts app and BlackBerry Messenger is also set to arrive on Android and iOS later this year. There’s no word yet on a Skype for iOS update, but we’d imagine that that’s fairly overdue too.

Skype 4.0 for Android is available to download from the Google Play store today.