Been hearing a lot of buzz about Heytell, so I decided to give it a whirl.
Interestingly, I forwarded the information to Kristen and she, surprise surprise, wanted to give it a try with me!
She downloaded the app on her iPhone, while I downloaded it on my HTC Aria android phone. We both stayed in WiFi connection during this test…
After a minute or so of trying to get the registrations completed and the Heytell process right, we were able to push & hold the button, and talk. A few short seconds later, I heard my voice coming out of Kristen’s iPhone. VERY COOL.
I then walked outside and we chatted for a few more seconds until the declaration came from inside “I’m bored”.
So much for testing Heytell with a 19 year old. How funny…
Overall
Heytell worked fine. The quality was good (listen to the clips below) and the ease of use was outstanding. I had thought you needed to download then respond, but, it was more “real-time” than that…like a walkie talkie. A good thing.
Not sure if teenagers will use it since texting is silent and more private, but, people who work together can certainly use it. For example, if I was down running wire at the racks, I could push to talk to Clint in his office (or in his office any where in the world) to test my work.
People in the field (for example an air conditioner mechanic) can connect very easily to home base…
I’m sure we can come up thousands of uses, but, I’m not sure (just a gut feeling) it is the next “killer app” some have proclaimed. For that…the teens need to be engaged, and judging by Kristen’s response (It certainly was not ME boring her…was it?) and comments about privacy…they may not engage.
But, I have been wrong once before. 🙂
I wonder…..push to talk video conferencing?
Audio Clip Saga
Preparing for this blog, I was able to access the conversation we had (by long holding Kristen’s conversation bar on my phone) and listen to each snippet. BUT, I was only able to export to my Gmail account MY portion of the conversation (not sure why that is). It was sent to me as a WMV file (without the video).
The two audio clips you hear below are different quality, and that is because I had to record Kristen’s via my laptop (Windows 7 sound recorder)….but, if you listen to the quality of my voice, that is what we both got using Heytell….VERY good!
Rant
#1: Windows 7 records and saves the audio files in WMA only (WTF is more like it, see this on WMA on WikiPedia). Maybe I missed something, but, standards are here for a reason. Right? Last I knew WMA (or even WMV) were not agreed to standards….??
#2: WordPress does not allow WMA only WMV (I wonder why one and not the other?), MP3…etc, but I had to upgrade to 5 Gig to get that ability (which I WILL use moving forward).
#3: I had to download a WMA to WMV or MP3 converter just to get the audio file I recorded using the Win 7 sound recorder (WMA) up here.
#4: Windows Movie Maker is gone, now some piece of garbage is in it’s place and it did not accept ANY audio files. Only video! How crappy.
Standards and Microsoft…..two words that do not seem to go together???
My suggestion: This is 2011 Microsoft….get with it. Save your dang audio files as MP3, or give us a choice !!!
Ahhh, I feel better? 🙂
TechyMike: Technology Made Easy 