Conference calls and video meetings have almost been synonymous with Skype for the longest time, but Amazon is looking at changing that. Chime, a new Amazon Web Services platform, wants to simplify communications between teams and individuals and cater to their different aspects in one app: video call, voice call, chat, and screen sharing.
Chime is now available on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. According to Amazon, the service was built from the ground up with mobile in mind, so the apps work well on phones and let users seamlessly transition from and to their desktops. There are a few other advantages to Chime, like the lack of any long pins (meetings ring up like a phone call), quick options to get out of a meeting or let others know you're running late, a view of all participants and their current status, the possibility to mute one specific person's microphone if there's too much ambient noise around them, and the ability for anyone to share their screen without too much hassle.
There's also a chatroom component to chime, with attachments to share important documents. Chime is free to try for 30 days, but after that, there are three plans to choose from. Basic Edition gives access to all of these options, minus screen sharing and with a 2 attendee limit, for free. Plus Edition is great for companies who want to manage users, but it costs $2.50/user/month and still keeps the 2 attendee limit. Pro Edition costs $15/user/month, but makes it possible to have meetings with up to 100 users and brings a host of add-ons. You can check the detailed plan structure and differences here.
  










If you want to give Chime a try, you can start by going to chime.aws and signing up. The Android app is available at the link below.