imo Instant Messenger For Android & iOS Gets Free Video Calling
In the four years since it was released, imo has managed to become a lot more than merely a medium for merging your multiple online messenger accounts. Thanks to the imo apps on Android and iPhone, users can stay in touch with their friends on the go. In recent times, the service has continued improving with the addition of new features and frequent UI changes. The biggest shortcoming of imo, though, has always been lack of video calling support. A few months back, it was announced that imo will get video chat in the near future, and the announcement was soon followed by the rollout of the feature to some alpha testers. Finally, the wait is over, and imo can now be used by all Android and iOS users to make video calls to their friends.
At first, you might struggle to find the new video calling option after updating the app, but that’s because the folks over at imo have chosen to make the feature completely unobtrusive. Next to each contact in your friends list, there is a video camera icon that can be used to initiate a video calling session. The button is shown against every contact, but works only for those who are on imo as well; otherwise, an error message is shown.
The video calling screen is quite simple yet efficient. You can push a video call to the background at any time you want, simply by navigating away from the app or hitting the chat button. From within a video call, it is fairly easy to switch to audio chat or instant messages, thanks to the buttons available in the bottom bar. You can also change your video feed between front and rear cams of your device. The video feature is identical on both iOS and Android.
Although video calling is the biggest addition to imo in its latest update, the app has another significant change as well. In the Broadcast section, you can configure your messages to be posted over Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as well. Like before, these messages can also contain photos from the camera roll, or ones that have been snapped from within imo.
On iOS, imo has always had two separate apps; one for the iPhone and the other optimized for the bigger screen of the iPad. With the latest update of the app, however, the two variants have been merged into one universal offering. You can grab the new iOS app and the updated Android one from the appropriate links provided below.
