IOS and Android Movie Calling: Which App to Use and When, Unwired View
iOS and Android Movie Calling: Which App to Use and When?
As industries go, the mobile movie calling space has pretty much exploded over the past few months, and it came almost totally out of the blue. What has happened almost overnight is that consumers, who had close to no options when it comes to movie calling their friends just a few months ago, are now dazed with different alternatives and have no idea which one to choose.
Of course, Facebook has thrown its hat into the movie talk ring with its Facebook Skype integration, which will most likely make its way to mobile phones in the near future.
So, I thought I would make a little order in the sea of movie calling applications that are now available and when you should be using what:
If you are an iPhone user and you want to call your friend on an iPhone, you have fairly a few options.:
You can use Apple’s Facetime platform to call your friend, but that means you both have to be using a Wifi connection. This is rumored to switch and iOS5 might support Facetime over 3G, but again, a rumor. Facetime works well and the movie quality is superb. It also enables you to call your iPhone-using friend anywhere in the world for free.
Unlike Facetime, to call your friend on Skype, you both have to have the app installed, not to mention that you both need to have a Skype account. The advantage of course, is that Skype on iPhone works over 3G and like Facetime, the movie and audio quality is remarkably good, even on 3G.
While almost all iPhone users have heard of the very first two options, Fring, as a 3rd party app is less well known, but undoubtedly has a nice size user-base. Generally speaking, as we said, Fring hammers Skype when it comes to innovation almost every time and now supports group movie talk, which is not yet supported by Skype. The UI is more joy and friendly than Skype and other apps, but the movie quality seems better sometimes than others.
As the fresh kid on the block, Tango has done very well and accumulated over seventeen million users in its very first year. Generally speaking, Tango keeps getting better but I find that it still has some serious bugs that drive me to use some of the above apps every time before I use Tango.
Vtok has to be the most unknown app out of the bunch, especially since it is actually a pretty superb solution. With Vtok, you can call your Gtalk friends who are on the iPhone app or to their desktop and based on my practice, the app works pretty flawlessly.
Out of all the apps on this list, Qik (recently acquired by Skype) suggested the best movie practice. The only problem and the reason I infrequently use this app is that no one I know is on it. Yes, the app has an invite system, but the last thing people want today is to open up yet another account especially if the service has many alternatives that they are already signed up to.
As opposed to iPhone apps, iPad users are significantly fewer options if they are interested in using a native iPad app, as opposed to an iPhone app scaled up to fit the big screen.
Well we already discussed this option above so we know the Wifi issue, but on iPad, there is another problem. Facetime only works with iPad Two. The very first generation iPad did not have a camera so the Facetime option is unavailable.
This one is pretty much a no brainer and Fring is your best bet right now if you want to movie call from an iPad. It is a fantastic app and the movie quality is more than solid. It works on iPad one as well, but of course with no camera, your friends wont be able to see you but you can see them. The one issue right now with Fring for iPad is the lack of a keypad to make calls, which is a strange thing to be missing from a VoIP app but the company has told me they are working on it.
This is a good solution for Gmail users, which pretty much means all Android users. The thing is, only users with Android Two.Three and up have the option to call from the Talk app on Android devices. That is approximately 10% of Android users, which is not fine, but the movie quality in this case is (excellent).
As mentioned above, a fairly popular app that works on Android as well as iPhone. The Tango app on Android certainly leaves room for improvement with some UI inconsistencies but at the end of the day, it does what it is supposed to and enables you to movie call your Android friends for free..
Similar to iPhone, Fring for Android is a good app. The Android UI is intuitive and the movie quality superb. Of course, the Android app also supports group movie talking.
Skype just recently released its Android app with movie call support but is only available for Android Two.Trio and up so the vast majority of Android users cannot use it. In my tests on the Nexus S, the app worked well and the movie quality was excellent.
Qik Movie is available on Android, but just like the iPhone version faces a serious challenge of getting people to install the app. My contact list in Qik consists of five to ten people, compared to over seventy five on Skype, just for comparison’s sake.
If you are on a mobile device, the only app that supports group movie talk is Fring. We already discussed the pluses and minues of Fring, but the fact that the company is so far ahead of the curve on this one is worth some serious praise.
If you are on your computer, Skype supports Group movie talk for a monthly fee, or you can use Google+ Hangout feature, which is free and earnestly awesome.
This is a basic overview of the mobile (and a little touch of desktop) movie calling landscape. There are other apps not menti0ned here such as Yahoo Messenger on mobile and MSN Messenger on desktop, as well as many others. I left out many apps on purpose as they are either too buggy to deserve a mention or have not hit the mainstream and have a very petite user base. The above solutions are the most solid and popular apps to enable you to movie talk with your friends and contacts.
IOS and Android Movie Calling: Which App to Use and When, Unwired View
iOS and Android Movie Calling: Which App to Use and When?
As industries go, the mobile movie calling space has pretty much exploded over the past few months, and it came almost totally out of the blue. What has happened almost overnight is that consumers, who had close to no options when it comes to movie calling their friends just a few months ago, are now dazed with different alternatives and have no idea which one to choose.
Of course, Facebook has thrown its hat into the movie talk ring with its Facebook Skype integration, which will most likely make its way to mobile phones in the near future.
So, I thought I would make a little order in the sea of movie calling applications that are now available and when you should be using what:
If you are an iPhone user and you want to call your friend on an iPhone, you have fairly a few options.:
You can use Apple’s Facetime platform to call your friend, but that means you both have to be using a Wifi connection. This is rumored to switch and iOS5 might support Facetime over 3G, but again, a rumor. Facetime works well and the movie quality is superb. It also enables you to call your iPhone-using friend anywhere in the world for free.
Unlike Facetime, to call your friend on Skype, you both have to have the app installed, not to mention that you both need to have a Skype account. The advantage of course, is that Skype on iPhone works over 3G and like Facetime, the movie and audio quality is remarkably good, even on 3G.
While almost all iPhone users have heard of the very first two options, Fring, as a 3rd party app is less well known, but certainly has a nice size user-base. Generally speaking, as we said, Fring hammers Skype when it comes to innovation almost every time and now supports group movie talk, which is not yet supported by Skype. The UI is more joy and friendly than Skype and other apps, but the movie quality seems better sometimes than others.
As the fresh kid on the block, Tango has done very well and accumulated over seventeen million users in its very first year. Generally speaking, Tango keeps getting better but I find that it still has some serious bugs that drive me to use some of the above apps every time before I use Tango.
Vtok has to be the most unknown app out of the bunch, especially since it is actually a pretty superb solution. With Vtok, you can call your Gtalk friends who are on the iPhone app or to their desktop and based on my practice, the app works pretty flawlessly.
Out of all the apps on this list, Qik (recently acquired by Skype) suggested the best movie practice. The only problem and the reason I infrequently use this app is that no one I know is on it. Yes, the app has an invite system, but the last thing people want today is to open up yet another account especially if the service has many alternatives that they are already signed up to.
As opposed to iPhone apps, iPad users are significantly fewer options if they are interested in using a native iPad app, as opposed to an iPhone app scaled up to fit the big screen.
Well we already discussed this option above so we know the Wifi issue, but on iPad, there is another problem. Facetime only works with iPad Two. The very first generation iPad did not have a camera so the Facetime option is unavailable.
This one is pretty much a no brainer and Fring is your best bet right now if you want to movie call from an iPad. It is a fantastic app and the movie quality is more than solid. It works on iPad one as well, but of course with no camera, your friends wont be able to see you but you can see them. The one issue right now with Fring for iPad is the lack of a keypad to make calls, which is a strange thing to be missing from a VoIP app but the company has told me they are working on it.
This is a superb solution for Gmail users, which pretty much means all Android users. The thing is, only users with Android Two.Three and up have the option to call from the Talk app on Android devices. That is approximately 10% of Android users, which is not good, but the movie quality in this case is (fine).
As mentioned above, a fairly popular app that works on Android as well as iPhone. The Tango app on Android undoubtedly leaves room for improvement with some UI inconsistencies but at the end of the day, it does what it is supposed to and enables you to movie call your Android friends for free..
Similar to iPhone, Fring for Android is a good app. The Android UI is intuitive and the movie quality superb. Of course, the Android app also supports group movie talking.
Skype just recently released its Android app with movie call support but is only available for Android Two.Trio and up so the vast majority of Android users cannot use it. In my tests on the Nexus S, the app worked well and the movie quality was excellent.
Qik Movie is available on Android, but just like the iPhone version faces a serious challenge of getting people to install the app. My contact list in Qik consists of five to ten people, compared to over seventy five on Skype, just for comparison’s sake.
If you are on a mobile device, the only app that supports group movie talk is Fring. We already discussed the pluses and minues of Fring, but the fact that the company is so far ahead of the curve on this one is worth some serious praise.
If you are on your computer, Skype supports Group movie talk for a monthly fee, or you can use Google+ Hangout feature, which is free and earnestly awesome.
This is a basic overview of the mobile (and a little touch of desktop) movie calling landscape. There are other apps not menti0ned here such as Yahoo Messenger on mobile and MSN Messenger on desktop, as well as many others. I left out many apps on purpose as they are either too buggy to deserve a mention or have not hit the mainstream and have a very puny user base. The above solutions are the most solid and popular apps to enable you to movie talk with your friends and contacts.