People can chill out together with the new Airtime app. (Photo : YouTube/What's That Product?)
The Airtime app is back and the timing could not be any better, now that both live and mobile video are all the rage. The one-on-one video app with some social functions introduced by Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker in 2012 has returned as a group video chat app.
Airtime was not successful and after being in limbo for a while, Parker officially brought it back on April 21, Thursday. It allows users to create a "room" where friends can share links, listen to music, privately watch videos together and chat in a way they can with Google Hangouts.
"We're just replicating something that happens all the time in real life." Parker told Re/Code. The app recreates the magic of chilling out or watching TV with friends.
Parker admitted it took them a long time to come with the group concept of the app due to technical challenges. Airtime now has partnership with Spotify, where Parker is also a part of, as well as with Vimeo and Vevo. The company is now confident that its app is better than similar existing apps like Skype and Google.
The Airtime signup process is intrusive as it immediately demands phone number and access to the user's contacts before doing anything. After the creation of a room and having invited friends, users can hold high-quality video chat without many problems, Engadget has learned. Users just need to "signal" friends to call them back to the room while the app also notifies colleagues when the room creator goes back into the room.
The feature of watching YouTube video together worked fine during the hands-on though it needed some cleaning up when stuff like text, video chat and videos cluttered. Nevertheless, the potential to hang out with friends or collaborate online while watching content together can already be seen.
Airtime is now available to try for free on iOS and Android, though the version for the latter is still in beta so it does not have all the features as in the iOS version.
Here is a video about the new Airtime app.
