- // Update 1 (01/05/2020 12:45 pm)
- JioMeet app pulled from Play Store and App Store
The COVID-19 lockdown has created a surge in demand for video conferencing apps. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams have witnessed a meteoric rise as businesses and students flocked to replace offline hangouts. Well, Reliance Jio also wants a piece of this pie and has today launched its own video conferencing app – JioMeet.
Once you are in, you will see tabs at the top – Favorites, Recents, and Contacts. If you want to start a video call, just tap the ‘video call’ icon next to the name of the user. The maximum call quality is set at 720p but the app automatically adapts the quality based on your connection. You can even exchange texts in an overlay over the video call.
In my brief time using the JioMeet app, I found the interface to be old-ish and similar to other Jio apps. This is not my biggest concern though. JioMeet works at a crawling pace when placing video calls. First, it doesn’t show a fullscreen UI when the recipient receives a video call. Instead, you will only see a banner notification, which on tapping takes you to a fullscreen UI to accept the call. So, it’s super easy for your friends or family to not even notice that someone is calling them.
So overall, JioMeet is a decent attempt at building a video conferencing app. But, you can rely on WhatsApp or Messenger, which recently added Rooms, if you simply want to catch up with friends or relay a message to your office workers.
Update 1 (01/05/2020 12:45 pm)
Though the JioMeet app was available for download last night, the video conferencing tool seems to have been pulled from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The app amassed over 100 thousand installs on the Play Store, but searching for JioMeet now shows an “Item not found” error. It looks like Reliance Jio was testing the video conferencing tool and has rescinded the rollout.
