Apps

The Periscope app for Android is coming soon

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periscope iOS

The latest craze in mobile apps is live video. A couple of weeks ago an app called Meerkat rose to massive popularity on iOS, but then along came the Twitter-backed Periscope. Like Meerkat, Periscope is an app that allows users to easily share live video. Periscope is a much more fleshed-out and feature-rich app. You can leave messages on streams, like streams with a heart, and watch replays of old live streams.

The only problem with both Meerkat and Periscope is they launched on iOS first without an Android app. In 2015 this is unacceptable, especially for a free app from a major company like Twitter. Periscope answered some common questions on their blog, and of course one of them was “when is Android coming?” The answer: “Soon! We’re working on it.”

Live stream apps are not rare or even new. Apps like Livestream and Ustream have been around for years. No one can predict when something will catch on. Unfortunately, those apps were a little ahead of their time. Will you give Periscope a try when it arrives on Android?

Joe Fedewa
Ever since I flipped open my first phone I've been obsessed with the devices. I've dabbled in other platforms, but Android is where I feel most at home.

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26 Comments

  1. I agree. It’s utter BS that apps do not launch at the same time, or at least within a few days of each other, especially with a big player like Twitter. The fact of the matter is Apple pays developers tons of money to not release apps on Android to make it seem like iOS is better and that Apple is so far ahead. There have been tons of devs to come out and say this, Apple also pays certain tech sites to praise Apple products even when they are poor or risk the wrath of Apple.

    1. Well developers have to let android catch up to iOS before they can release an app. Or you get crap like amazon instant video or skype with half the features. Just practice patience (pretend its a major android update) and it will come eventually, maybe even full featured! Hell i thought you guys would NEVER get emoji’s, but look 3, 4 or was 5 years later and BOOM! there you have it! Now that’s bleeding edge!

      1. Let android catch up to iOS, REALLY dude, REALLY, guess who just got on the mobile pay bandwagon two years late, guess who got on the big screen bandwagon four years late, in all seriousness it’s iOS that has a lot of catching up to do, other than having 64 bit processing for one cycle only over android iOS has brought nothing to the table since jobs passed away. SMH and LMFAO

        1. That guy is misinformed, didn’t do his homework before he posted, there has always been a bias, especially in the US. The dev’s are truly magical, for android than any other os(except maybe linux). Marketing plays a big role in what gets published first, and big companies will go for big money all the time, that’s why ios gets it first.

      2. I really wish my Android devices would get killer features like decent notifications, widgets, app sharing, NFC, Bluetooth sharing and WiFi Direct before they debut on the iPhone!

      3. Troll spotted

      4. Major mobile carriers advertise flagship Android devices as Superphones, while iPhone is still carrying the title “Smartphone”.
        …nuf said.

      5. Your full of $hit.

    2. It’s more than BS. It’s silly. It means that a developer is missing out on 50% of the market in the US, and a much greater percentage in Europe.

      It may be that Twitter has crunched the numbers and worked out that (for example) a greater proportion of iOS users have Twitter compared with the Android userbase. Maybe. The sharing between apps has been almost non-existent on iOS until recently, so apps would often have Facebook/Twitter sharing hardcoded in. That gives an unfair advantage to those services and prevents a competing social media service from gaining traction. So maybe a Twitter-backed service could establish itself quicker on iOS than on Android (where, traditionally, users can share with any service they choose).

  2. Is it anonymous? I could get into a video version of Whisper ;)

  3. Can someone explain why major developers do not release Android counterparts to iOS apps at the same time? Or why they take ages to do so?

    1. Baffles me too, especially as it’s quicker to publish an app to the Play Store, which gives developers a chance to get bugs ironed out before Apple has even approved the version for iOS.

      I think one reason for the delay is that iOS is the lowest common denominator platform. Anything it can do is possible on Android, whereas the opposite isn’t true. You wouldn’t want users to get used to features in the Android version, and then not be able to replicate that functionality on the iPhone. So in some ways it’s easier to go iPhone first and then simply port the app.

    2. Apple frequently pays developers for exclusiveness or to withhold on android or a period to favor their product. Verizon does it also with phones.

      1. That makes plausible sense. It would be really cool to see this kind of documentation brought to light. I wonder if anyone’s thought about doing some kind of expose on this.

        1. Actually it is because of all the phone models associated with Android. Each company has to have specific tweaks to apply the app to their own tech (HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc.) and since they don’t collaborate sharing their ‘secrets’ each other, the release is held until all different android models are all ready to roll it out. Without that, for ‘example’, Samsung could be ready but Nexus users wouldn’t be able to use a new app that others with Androids can. The uproar of competition keeps it from being so.

      2. Seeing your name popped this song back into my head:

        https://youtu.be/fqiasBVGtX8?t=10s

        1. Awesome song.

  4. It’s my understanding that iOS apps are written in obj-c while most android apps are written in java. That could be the reason for the wait.

    1. or swift now

  5. Who has mor gamers, android or iOS? That should determine importance.

    1. Yeah, because a twitter app has so much to do about games. LOL

  6. The reason apps appear on ios first, is marketshare, and the market. In this day, and age, it’s no more difficult to code for android, as it is for ios. I’d wager, that there’s more tools now for android, than for closed system ios. The regular developer, I’m not too concerned about, it’s the bigger companies, that look at their bottom line first, and given the misplaced popularity of ios, will do that first, or at all. What people should be worried about, is when there’s a android version of an app, it’s not half-baked, compared to ios. With the bias, cultivated by the media, in the US, even if android comes out with a feature first, the news plays it up, as if ios came out with this new “magical” feature.

    1. Um … what?

  7. Each company has to have specific tweaks to apply the app to their own tech (HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc.) and since they don’t collaborate sharing their ‘secrets’ each other, the release is held until all different android models are all ready to roll it out. Without that, for ‘example’, Samsung could be ready but Nexus users wouldn’t be able to use a new app that others with Androids can. The uproar of competition keeps it from being so.

  8. i have a personal policy that if an app released for iOS is not simultaneously released for Adroid, I simply decline to use that app when it finally is released. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but i provably stick to it about 90% of the time. I look very Android alternatives where i can, preferably paid apps – the developers deserve to be supported for supporting us!

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