BetaKit covered UberConference when the company launched an enterprise version of its visual conference calling platform, and today the company announced the release of its mobile apps for both iPhone and Android. Through the app, users will be able to send dial-in details or automatically dial out to add participants, giving professionals on the go a way to take advantage of time spent in between transit. Backed by Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, the startup has seen steady adoption of its service, which aims to address all too common conference call pain points that have become the norm.
“What we’ve seen over the last two months, our users being on the go a lot and the ability to set up conference calls while on the go was a pretty big request,” said Vincent Paquet, UberConference’s VP of Product, in an interview with BetaKit. “We tend to think that everything you can do on the web you should be able to do on the phone.”
Using the free mobile app, users can initiate a call by selecting the relevant contacts, and the app also includes the existing functionality available on the web version, including the ability to see who’s on the call, who’s talking at any given time, who recently joined, who left, who’s causing the background noise, and the ability to put ‘earmuffs’ on callers, easily conduct call recordings, and scroll over an individual to access their profiles on popular social networks. Something users will be able to do for free on the mobile apps is outbound dialing, which automatically calls all the participants at once, usually a feature included in the paid pro account.
Today’s app launch comes on the heels of competitor Voxeet’s mobile app launch last week, and that service has similar visual cues to UberConference. Other startups looking to disrupt the industry include Speek, which lets users send out URLs instead of a dial-in which they click to join either on the web or via mobile and Personify, whose Personify Live tool pairs with a depth-sensing camera to show a video of the presenter as an overlay to their presentation to simulate a face-to-face experience. In response to the company’s position in the crowded space, Paquet said debuting the mobile app will help set them apart from traditional conference calling tools.
“We’re really driven by our customer requests and we feel in general you spend a lot of time on the road, on the go, and being able to do everything on the mobile app is pretty cool,” he said.
The company has a number of features it will be looking to roll out in 2013 which it hopes will continue to change how its users perceive conference calls. It’s also looking at the possibility of adding an iPad app down the road to take advantage of the larger screen real estate. With a handful of free and competing services that users can select from, the company’s focus on eliminating as many pain points as possible will help it continue to gain traction as enterprise, SMBs, and freelancers look for tools that place an emphasis on user experience and visual aesthetics.