Mobile gameplay streaming service Kamcord has launched on Android, letting users share clips of their time playing games on their phone with voiceover.
The move to Android brings more than a wider potential audience: an API Google made available in Android 5.0 lets developers record video of other apps running on the phone, meaning Kamcord users on Google’s mobile operating system will be able to create videos with any game, not just those whose developers have integrated Kamcord’s SDK.
Last week, Kamcord co-founder Adi Rathnam told TechCrunch that the startup has been working on the Android port of its app since Google unveiled Android 5.0 and its video capture API. However, the Android upgrade cycle is notoriously slow, and Android 5.0 has only recently reached 10% usage among Android phones. Rather than release an app with a feature only a very small minority could use, Kamcord decided to hold off on the release to work on improving the user experience.
For instance, unlike some other apps that have emerged which take advantage of the new screen-recording API, Kamcord doesn’t capture all of the awkward interactions that happen after you hit record in the app. Instead of recording the jump out of the recording app, the swipes over to the game, and the notifications that occasionally pop up, Kamcord just gets the gameplay, saving time spent on tedious editing.
Launching on Android also brings the possibility of reaching millions of Chinese users. While Kamcord has found growth in Japan and South Korea thanks to integrations in popular games on iOS, broad popularity in China will require appearing the in the variety of app stores in the country. Rathnam says conversations with the operators of several app stores have already begun, though the app still needs to be localized for Chinese users.
The move to Android lays the groundwork for a series of product and feature launch from Kamcord. The startup is working on a new FaceCam feature that will let users easily include a video feed of their own face (like YouTubers and Twitch streamers with webcams). That feature will show up on Android in the next few weeks, and makes its way to iOS later on.
That isn’t to say that Kamcord has given up on iOS as a platform. Rathnam says that after FaceCam arrives on Android, Kamcord plans to launch a new Periscope-like live-streaming app on iOS “by the end of the quarter.”