Twitter has made its live-streaming app Periscope available for smartphones and tablets that run on the Android operating system, developer Sara Haider has told dpa. Periscope lets users share live video feeds from their handheld devices. To date, it has only been available for Apple devices. Purchased by Twitter for several million dollars, its main competitor has been a similar service called Meerkat.
The new Android app comes with two new functions that make use of the advantages of the Google operating system, says Haider. Users can now choose individually about which events they wish to receive notifications. It's also easier to return to viewing live feeds if they've been interrupted because a user had to work in another app for a while.
Android users need to have at least version 4.4 of Android, dubbed KitKat, to use Periscope.
Haider said a team of three has been at work since March writing the app. She noted that the variety of Android devices, many by different manufacturers, with different chips and screen sizes, makes it much more complex to write apps for Google's system than for iOS.