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Oovoo for Android and iPhone gains simultaneous four-way video chat

Oovoo for Android and iPhone gains simultaneous four-way video chat

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Oovoo for Android and iPhone have been updated to support up to four simultaneous video chat streams at once.

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Cross-platform video chat app Oovoo is bringing its Android and iPhone offerings up to par with its desktop and iPad services today: the two mobile apps now can wrangle up to four video streams at once. Oovoo's apps (including its Facebook offering) have supported 12-way video chat for a while now, but Android and iPhone users to-date were stuck with being able to view just one other user's video stream at a time. With today's update you'll still be able to chat with twelve people at once, but now you'll get to see four of your friends' video streams at a time. We gave the new app for Android a quick spin and opened up a four-way video chat, and over a Wi-Fi network the stream quality was quite impressive. Unfortunately, streams did drop more than we would have liked, but that may have been due to network conditions. And while you can't see all 12 users on a call at once, you can swap which four video streams you do receive during the call — and switch when necessary.

Other than simultaneous four-way video chat, the Android and iPhone apps both now feature push notifications and background text chat during video calls — as well as a widget and better contacts integration on Android. This isn't the first to get four-way video chat on mobile (Fring is one competitor that comes to mind), but if you're interested both Oovoo apps are available now for free from Google Play and the iTunes App Store.