Meerkat is a livestream application for iPhone. Getting started with the application is quite simple. Download, launch and allow Meerkat to log in using your Twitter account which you already have on your iPhone. It is that simple to setup this application.
What Meerkat Can Do?
So, after setting up application it gives you the option to either start a live stream now or schedule it. If you wish to schedule your livestream, then it will ask you to add some brief about the running and application will automatically tweet it. The stream link will then show a ticking counter. And if you start a showing right away then it will tweet the live stream link along with the brief you added and anyone with that link can view the streaming.
The interesting part is that it shows the people who are viewing your livestream on top of the screen. However, the list of viewers on top of the screen includes both are currently viewing and the ones who have already left it. This was quite disappointing for us. We felt that it should keep track of current viewers and the ones who have already left the stream separately. Two different lists would have been a perfect idea!
On the bottom of the screen there are different toggles. One of them can help you in switching between the primary and secondary camera, the second one will stop the livestream for you and the last one is to turn on the flash and we feel this will come in handy for using at nights.
One downside of this application is that NOT everyone can view your stream. It is specifically available to Twitter users only. If you are logged into your Twitter account or if you don’t have one, then you cannot view the stream. This is quite disappointing and we found it quite strange!
Now another interesting part is that all your Twitter followers using Meerkat will show up in app automatically as Meerkat followers. So, as soon as you start a livestream your Meerkat followers will get a push notification and they can view the streaming from app directly.
The idea of the app is pretty good but it comes with lots of restrictions. The major one is that only Twitter users can view stream. We hope with future updates these issues are sorted out!