Best Live Streaming App for IPhone
Sharing great moments (or just snippets of your life) with friends or loved ones has never been easier, and a new class of streaming apps allows them to join you in real time. We believe Periscope is the best of these applications today and has the greatest potential in the near future.
Periscope
Platform: iOS ( and Android ) Price: Free download page
Functions
- Makes live streaming a simple one-touch operation.
- Supports streaming in both portrait and landscape formats
- Allows you to broadcast live for everyone or privately for specific invitees who have a link to broadcast
- You can connect to Twitter (which makes sense since Periscope is owned by Twitter) to share your stream with friends and followers, and you can find broadcasters to follow based on who you follow on Twitter.
- Allows you to play streams through your profile if your friends miss the live stream
- Supports YouTube auto-download, so after the broadcast is over, you can save it and share it with a wider audience.
- Allows you to follow your Twitter contacts using the app, view available live broadcasts by geographic location, and see which of your friends are streaming live at any given time.
- Replays – or broadcasts of broadcasts from the last 24 hours – are also displayed on the map, so you can see recent events as well as current broadcasts.
- Allows you to rewind / fast forward or rewind live broadcasts, so if you’re running late you can go back and see what you missed and then back to speed
Where is it best
Periscope may not have been the first to launch live streaming for the iPhone, but it has managed to hone the process to the point that many prefer it. It’s incredibly easy to start a stream, share the stream, and interact with the people who are watching. From installation to broadcasting – just a couple of steps, and even after your first stream, you can start a new one with one touch. Share this on Twitter and watch people tune in, leave you messages in real time, shower you with hearts, and you have a tool that people really use to share interesting moments in their lives – or noteworthy events.
The social aspects of Periscope and the connection to Twitter make it easy to use for news moments, whether it’s something of value to the whole world or just for you and your friends. However, for those more privacy-minded, these social aspects are largely optional (other than logging in), so you can freely stream publicly or privately. Best of all, Periscope still makes it easy to upload your streams to YouTube, so anyone who missed it can catch up.
Periscope makes it easy to stream anything with just a tap. Whether it’s aquick video unboxing for your fans and subscribers, a family event that someone can’t see in person across the country, or a protest demonstration broadcasting a march around the world , the app makes it easy to quickly connect with other people. … Our colleagues at Kotaku used it to light the show floor at E3 live and it was amazing.
Where it fails
Periscope is popular and easy to use, but not perfect. As we mentioned, when we gave it the same support for Android , its integration with Twitter makes sense, but it can integrate better with other networks as well as with Facebook (despite the lack of “real time” capabilities beyond the flow of activity ) and other video services like Vimeo or Google Photos can also be a good place to save past streams. As before, none of this is a major disadvantage, as Periscope aims for simplicity above all else, and additional complexity for services that are not frequently used (or desired by users) may not be necessary.
Beyond that, we still see more than our share of dotted connections, streams that work but take an infinitely long time to load, and intermittent streams, but it’s always difficult to determine if these issues are caused by a Periscope app, user connection, or user device, or connection. viewer. Some streams are good, but others, especially streaming outdoors or when the streamer is clearly using 3G or 4G, can be difficult to watch.
It’s also worth noting that a lot of users, especially iOS users, report that Periscope can get very hot on your phone and is definitely a drain on your battery, so keep that in mind when streaming (or better yet, when planning to stream).
Competition
Meerkat (Free) is Periscope’s biggest competition, and to be honest, it was the first. While the two were tough rivals before, they are now slightly different. Meerkat only hosts public live events (although you can revisit the streams later if you like). The UI is definitely more cluttered and definitely a little more difficult to use. Its development has also slowed down – there are definitely updates and fixes in the app, but there are no new features since August. Streaming is still a one-touch start, but it’s kind of a surprise, and there are practically no settings. Signing up, however, is a little easier (you only need a phone number, profile photo, and username) and you don’t need to link your Twitter account until you want – you can also link the app to Facebook. and also if you like. It’s a good option anyway if you already use it or know people using it, but we definitely prefer Periscope.
Hang w / (Freemium, with in-app purchases) tries to do a lot, which is either great or a disadvantage depending on your needs. It’s both an app for live streaming from your phone and a live streaming service that you can use via your webcam, but the app focuses not only on creating your own channel and streaming what you do, but on building audiences for existing streamers. … and giving them a platform. More than a few celebrities post their streams, both direct and archived, on Hang w / and encourage you to join, watch, comment from your phone or the internet (or Apple Watch), and even tip your favorite broadcasters. However, even though there is a large community on Hang w /, you can always start your own streams and publish your shows, or just stream what you do periodically. However, it does have some unique features for viewers, such as the ability to zoom in and out of broadcasts. For streamers, you get perks like ad sharing (if your streams are free and many are not) and the ability to post directly to YouTube or broadcast from webcams like GoPro. It’s a lot harder to navigate here than some of the simpler options, and the monetary aspect means there is a greater barrier to entry, but it’s worth considering if you want streaming more of a business than something you do with friends.
Livestream (free) has been around for a long time. The app has come a long way in the post-Meerkat and post-Periscope days, and while it’s not as easy to use as these two, it’s definitely simpler than it used to be. However, it’s definitely more of a social network of its own than a purely streaming service. Partnerships with TV networks and sports leagues also mean that any event streamed via Livestream on the Internet is an event that you can watch on your phone (or desktop) and you can replay the events after they have ended. While saving your own streams to share elsewhere, connect to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and interact with other streamers. Again, not as simple or straightforward as some of the others here, but useful if you’re looking for an alternative or prefer to find live streams to watch your own events. The app is so popular mainly because it is so easy to find affiliate streams and live streams, which makes it a little less personal than Periscope or Meerkat, but still interesting.
UStream (Free In-App Purchases to Remove Ads) is another old, familiar app, but hard to recommend. It’s ad-supported, which isn’t bad, but there are a lot of ads out there , and every time the stream is interrupted, the app crashes, or you need to reload, you get a new batch – sometimes the same ads as you. just looking. Their solution is, of course, to buy a premium membership, which is convenient to sell through an in-app purchase. Streaming is tricky too – you can stream from your device, but that’s clearly not what the app is really meant to do. If you have a favorite broadcast on Ustream (like this HD live view from the International Space Station ) and want to check it out on your phone or tablet, or if you are streaming and want to see how you look on another device then it’s worth checking out, but good luck finding it. The search is pretty awful, and the only streams you go to in the app are “popular” or “best of Ustream”, which is a waste of quality. Obviously, UStream is “paying us to host your video streaming platform” and not “using us to stream to friends and family.”
Stringwire (free) is actually a live streaming application from NBC. This means that while the app definitely makes it easy to start and stop streams, your videos are pretty much the property of NBC. Make no mistake, they trust you if you are broadcasting something they use for news and urge you to use the app to bring news to your community and kind of engage in citizen journalism, but that’s just the thing to leave. in the mind. Stringwire is also notable for the fact that it works with personal drones: there are instructions on how to use the app with a DJI Phantom 2 Vision + or any Parrot Bebop, and the app also works with internet connected cameras like GoPro. Stringwire also makes it easy to find other active streams from anywhere in the world, including live broadcasts from reporters or other news outlets using the app. You can also save your videos and streams locally (which a surprising number of other apps don’t let you do) for backup or sharing anywhere you choose.