Sunday saw the first of our live transmissions of mass live on Facebook – albeit with one or two hiccups which we are confident will be rectified for next week. The week before we even streamed mass live on YouTube. For all of us these are very difficult times and for many of us it means that we cannot meet up with friends and family. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t get to see them. In many ways we are very fortunate to be living at a time when we have very advanced technology to help us connect with friends and family around the world – all we need is a laptop or iPad or phone and the technology does the rest.
With that in mind we thought we would compile a list of applications that you can use to stay connected via both audio and video.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular mobile applications out there and it allows individuals to send messages (text, image and video) to friends, family and even work colleagues. You can use it to message individually or as part of a group. So, you may have a family group or a confirmation parents group or even a book club group.
WhatsApp can be used on a iPhone or Android device, a laptop/desktop, iPad/ tablet or on the new Facebook Portal device. It’s deal for sending messages and connecting to friends and family via video. For video calls with one or two or even a few this app is ideal.
More information: www.whatsapp.com
Facetime
Facetime is a great application to use if you’re looking to connect with people on Apple devices (iPad, iPhone, iMac or Macbooks). As the name implies it is usually used for making face-to-face video calls but you can also make audio calls. It is without doubt the simplest app to use and just requires you to add in a person’s telephone number (Apple obviously) or email address and click 📞.
More details: Facetime
Zoom
Zoom is definitely one of the better platforms for video meetings and especially if you want to connect to more than 2 or 3. How about arranging to meet up for a bible study session? Or take your book club online? Or how about doing a pub quiz? Or just arrange to have a virtual beer or coffee online with friends? Zoom is fantastic for all this and much more. Though you can use it on smartphones and tablets (like the iPad), the quality/experience is better on a laptop or desktop computer.
The free version offers people the ability to speak to others for up to 40 minutes. All you do is set up a meeting and send your friends an invite 40 minutes not long enough? Just set up another meeting! As with all of these applications always exercise caution in terms of who you send invites to and don’t publicise this invite.
More details: www.zoom.us.
Other applications you can check out are Skype, Google Hangouts and House Party.
If you have any questions, just send us an email.
