As the Coronavirus-led mandatory lockdowns have put the population of several countries around the world indoors, people are now relying more on apps and online services for their daily needs. Personally speaking, I miss hanging out with my friends, watching something cool online, and discussing random topics. Well, for the “watching together” part, earlier we featured a Google Chrome extension to watch Netflix while in a video call. Now, we have found a mobile app to stream content and watch it together with friends or family over a video conference.
The “Airtime” app is a pretty cool social app that lets users watch videos and listen to music while in a video conference with friends or family. The app lets you create private rooms in which you can add your trusted friends or family members to start interacting with each other. Then if you want to have some fun, you or any other member of the room can choose a YouTube video and share it with all the other members of the room to watch it together.
My Experience
I downloaded the app on my iPhone X and it came for about 128MB. So, after the installation, I opened the app and did have to set up my account with my phone number. And after giving the necessary permissions, the app was ready to go.
Creating Rooms
Now, after setting up the app, you will be given a public room of your own by default. However, there is also the option of creating private rooms. The difference between the “Party” room and the “Private” room is that, in “Party” rooms, any of your friends using the app can join the rooms and this gives access to the room to their friends too. While in “Private” rooms, only those users will be able to join who are invited by you personally.
So, create a room in “Airtime”, follow the steps below:
- Open the app and tap the “Home” button on the tabs bar at the bottom.
- Tap the “+” icon on the top-right corner.
- Select the members whom you want to add in the room.
- Now, select the type of room (“Private” or “Party”) you want.
- Add a name to the room.
- Tap “Create” on the top-right corner and voila! You’re done.
Sharing YouTube Videos with Other Members
Now, after creating the room, you and your friends can open it anytime and “signal” other members to come and hang out together. In the room, you can text, send animated stickers and sound reactions, watch YouTube videos, and even watch Twitch streams together.
So, to start playing a video in the room:
- Tap the “Popcorn bucket” icon at the bottom-left corner in the room screen.
- Then, tap the “videos” button and search for the video you want to play.
- Tap the video to open it and then tap the “Post to Room” or tap the arrow button beside a video to start playing it in the room right away.
This app is well thought out and comes with an intuitive UI design. Using it is as easy as a Sunday morning and the best part, the app comes for free. However, there are in-app purchases for live paid events or some extra VIP perks, which I think will not be necessary for a general user. “Airtime” is available for both iOS and Android.
Get “Airtime” from the App Store.
Get “Airtime” from the Play Store.
