gizmodo.in
With these apps, getting in touch with several people at once is much easier than before
Gone are the days of calling every one in your phone book or pains takingly typing out individual SMS messages for everyone com ing to your birthday dinner. Here are the best five apps suited to keeping group conversations going without any hassles.
Almost every popular messaging app has some type of group messaging capability, from Allo to iMessage, but we'll ignore the most well-known messaging apps to recommend ones with specific group-friendly features.
GroupMe
Android and iOS [free]
GroupMe, now ow ne d by Microsoft and Skype, is one of the oldest and best-loved group messaging apps out there, bringing with it a bunch of features for pinging multiple people at once. Sharing photos, videos, links, tweets, GIFs and more inside your custom-made groups is all neatly handled and the interface is smart and uncluttered throughout. Any friend who doesn't have GroupMe installed can start chatting via SMS and there's plenty to play around with inside the app.
BBM
Android and iOS [free]
Hang on, hear us out: BlackBerry Messenger was always one of the Canadian company's strongest products and even if its handset business and even if its handset business has gone down the drain, BBM is still a fine messaging app in its own right, and a lot of its features lend themselves pretty well to group chats. It also does one-to-one messaging, video calls, and much more.
Tango
Android and iOS [free]
Tango is packed with a bunch of features beyond messaging multiple people at once, from video calls to the ubiquitous sticker packs, but its groups feature is one of the more polished and capable out there at the moment. The app also supports public chat rooms you can jump into and there's the option to `follow' people as you can on Twitter.
Groups
iOS [freemium]
As the name suggests, Groups' main reason for existing is to make it easy to message several people at one go. It doesn't have the most modern interface in the world, but in terms of functionality it's perfect for staying in touch with the various groups of friends, acquaintances, relatives, fellow workers, and anyone else important to you. It's best for pinging multiple people at once with one-off messages.
Facebook Messenger
Android and iOS [free]
Of the bigger names in messaging, we think Facebook Messenger is perhaps the best geared to keeping a group of people in the loop, not least because pretty much everyone you know is already on it. You can rename group conversations, make group calls, view recently shared content, and set custom colours, notifications and emojis for each chat.