Doesn’t it bother you that popular mobile video chatting solutions draw from pedestrian video compression technology (maxing out at 720p, at best) and rarely provide acceptable audio quality?
Case in point: Microsoft-owned Skype, which bragged about its recent iOS client update bringing high-definition video calling – though it’s limited to 720p. Spin, a brand new free of charge iOS mobile together experience, is unlike any chat you’ve experienced before.
Three years in the making, Skype’s hot new competitor is exclusive to the iPhone and iPad and capable of delivering cinematic experiences with full HD 1080p video (1,920-by-1,080 pixel resolution, to be precise) at sixty frames per second, along with crisp Wideband 44kHz audio.
You and your parents should immediately download Spin. Jump past the fold for the full reveal…
Pitched as “the new together,” Spin lets up to ten participants engage in a multi-video chat session, Google Hangouts style, with 2-3X greater video quality.
Spin is the first real-time together experience exclusively for iPhone and iPad. Connect up to ten people and enjoy stunningly beautiful photos and videos live and fully together – with quality so true to life, you’ll feel like you’re side by side.
The team aimed to build an entirely way for people to “express their silly, spontaneous, quirky selves, where the technology disappeared completely and people just could focus on being together in incredible experience”.
They’re not lying about the features.
You can switch between front/back cameras, move around and resize thumbnails of chat participants, control the volume or mute each participant and more.
Some of the capabilities are just downright amusing. For instance, if someone goes on and on blabbering, throw tomatoes at their face. If you like what they’re saying, give them a Standing O.
How about a live-drawing option? You can do that as well. Send paper airplanes into someone else’s screen or animated hearts?
That, too!
Another nice touch: Spin lets you explore your friends’ Flickr and Facebook photos, choose what iOS Camera Roll photos you want to share (and what to keep private), as well as play, pause and rewind other folks’ videos live as you watch together.
Check it out in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlrKJcd_WAM
This is freaking amazing, isn’t it?
Carmel Deamicis of PandoDaily took Spin for a spin and came away with some pretty favorable impressions. Though similar to Skype, Spin is “lightyears better” due to a number of reasons.
The point is Spin is awesome. Go download it. Immediately. Make your grandmother download it. Make your best friends from college download it. Start showing each other photos and watching funny videos together.
Organize a reunion party on Spin, grab some bottles of wine, and wait to see how long it’ll take before someone starts throwing tomatoes. It will be time well spent.
And this is what Spin looks like on an iPhone.
What’s best, you can send email invites to folks to dial in and they can join in without signing up for a Spin account – how’s that for a frictionless experience?
On the downside, high-quality experience comes at a cost: video/audio quality is heavily dependent on network conditions and high throughput is required to move full HD video and Wideband audio around.
Spin has some nice advice on throwing a decent online party so give it a quick read.
If you’re interested, give Spin a whirl – it’s free.
Download Spin from the App Store now.
The app is compatible with the iPhone 4S and up, the iPad 2 or later, iPad mini and the fifth-generation iPod touch. Thanks to AirPlay support, you can beam those fun video chats onto the big screen wirelessly through your Apple TV box.
So, who’ll get spun?