Pursuit of APPiness: Loklok, Periscope by Twitter and Giphy for Facebook Messenger

[The app world is very noisy! There are a bunch of apps being developed everyday and we carry a weekly App Fridays column to review the best of what is coming from India but even these are pretty early stage. This new series will feature impressive apps from around the world that are stable and have impressed us by their use case, UI or UX. Check out the apps featured on Pursuit of APPiness]

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LokLok

Unlike traditional messaging apps, Loklok brings messages to your lock screen. Studies show people look at their phones close to 150 times a day, it makes sense to use screen as the quick communication channel. The Loklok app replaces your standard lock screen with a new one where you can draw, leave notes and place photos. It lets you connect it to a friend so that both your lock screens become synchronized. Whenever one of you draw something on a lock screen instantly it shows up on the other person’s lock screen. It is fun if you share screen with your romantic partner, or create a group with your closest friends.

Set LokLok as your lockscreen, and then tap twice to make it editable so that you can doodle. Or you can swipe up to unlock and use your phone as normal. If you enabled passcode on your phone, the app lets Android handle your lock-security and never override or compromise it.

Notifications are off by default because the fun part of using Loklok is the serendipity, when you wake your phone up to find someone has sent you a doodle. Just like SnapChat, LokLok’s messages are ephemeral by nature. No history is saved, once a user erase their screen, messages are gone forever. The app only retains the latest image from each group on the server.

Url: loklok.co

Check it out on Android, not yet on iOS*

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Periscope by Twitter:

Periscope is app designed to stream un-staged and simple moments of our lives in video. Periscope’s launch heralds the goliath against the underdog in live streaming tussle. After Meerkat’s popularity, Twitter has launched its live streaming app Periscope which it acquired early in January for $100 million.

We’ve seen this movie before Facebook was trying Slingshot, poke… still SnapChat is alive and kicking with insane valuation. Still both Periscope and Meerkat are not available on Android, let see who will launch first for 75%+ Smartphone OS market.

The time is right to do live video broadcasting, smartphones have been sold, internet connections have become somewhat stable and camera lenses are decent. More importantly the audience across social networks is ready to tune in live to enjoy the consensual voyeurism.

The secret sauce of Periscope is reducing its latency to under two seconds, thus enabling the viewer to converse with the broadcaster via comment. We’ve all watched live videos on YouTube, Twitch or even good old TV. But we as viewers never had this type of real time engagement with the content producer.

On Instagram or Twitter a person can favourite your post once with heart. With Periscope one user could give you 100 fav/hearts throughout your three minutes broadcasting. Also, Periscope lets you broadcast private streams to only select friends and delete public broadcasts after the show. Read more on Periscope.

Url: https://periscope.tv

Check it out on iOS, Not yet on Android*

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Giphy for Facebook Messenger

Do you need to react to something or need to say LOL better on mobile? Now you've got a GIF for that. At the recent announcement at f8 (Facebook developers summit), Facebook Messenger just got very Giphy. In fact, this is the first time a GIF service had a standalone mobile app. Before this we all were dependent on browsers for our GIF consumption.

Giphy For Messenger is as fun on the phone as it is in a browser. It lets you search perfect GIF from the world's largest library of animated GIFs. You can explore the world of popular memes, TV, movies, and music.

In a messaging world, stickers are a big deal. Giphy For Messenger wants you to believe static emojis are so yesterday, share a moving emoji instead.

Url: giphy.com

Check it out iOS and Android

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Bonus: REBUS is an absurd logic game for people who love mind games. It is catchy and intuitive. Check out the site http://jutiful.com/ as well as their iOS & Android game for some mental gymnastics.