Push to talk pioneer Voxer recently jumped on the phone with me to discuss its recent expansion to the Apple Watch, which enables users to seamlessly communicate by providing them with fast access to their text, photo and voice messages.
I spoke with Irv Remedios, President of Voxer, who gave me a little more insight into the Apple Watch release and also some future plans that Voxer has to expand further into other realms.
“the first step in making seamless two-way communication via wearables a reality”
“Bringing Voxer functionality to the Apple Watch and providing users with fast access to their messages is just the first step in making seamless two-way communication via wearables a reality,” said Irv. “We look forward to providing Voxer users with full voice messaging capabilities, bringing walkie-talkie-like functionality to Apple Watch wearers’ wrists as soon as APIs are available.”
The success story that is the Voxer app has had a long road, launching its very first version way back in February 2011 for iOS. Android got Voxer in October of that same year, and the Windows Phone version was released back in June 2013, only a few months before Voxer for Web was announced.
Between each of the aforementioned versions, Voxer has grown, and is now used by thousands of businesses and over 60 million users worldwide.
Lately, Voxer has been driven to making new moves by the vision of “enabling and improving modern communication through more personalized messaging.”
“[Voxer for Apple Watch] makes things easier, faster, and more convenient,” Irv said of the release. “Users receive notifications at a glance, can review past messages, [and] send quick replies.”
The release for Apple Watch, which includes text-only support since Apple has not released the APIs for voice capability publicly yet, notifies you as soon as a message comes in. From there, you can simply tap the short look notification image to instantly view the message, and then respond by utilizing Siri to transcribe voice-to-text.
choose among preloaded messages that you can send in individual or group chats
With your response, you can choose among a number of preloaded messages that you can send in either individual or group chat sessions. Apple’s “Handoff” feature will allow you to move the conversation back to your iPhone whenever you wish.
Voxer real-time voice with text, photo and location sharing can be deployed on smartphones and tablets running iOS or Android and on laptops running OSX or Windows. It also runs over any network, including cellular and Wi-Fi.
Voxer is “always looking for new opportunities” to expand to other areas, says Irv. When asked about the app’s expansion to Windows tablets and BlackBerry 10, Irv said the company “evaluates from time to time” on the expansions and is “actively considering” all of its options. When evaluating these plans, Voxer asks itself one simple question: “How can we connect people in personal ways?”
In closing, Irv also informed me that Voxer’s partnership with NASA continues and that Voxer has “new features coming in the coming months” as we alluded to back in April. Until then, you can download Voxer on Apple Watch and more and become part of the “instant voice” phenomenon.