Tribeway is an Android app that hopes to revolutionize the way that we communicate and how we share things with each other. With Tribeway, you can chat for free just like WhatsApp however, you can also video call friends and share things in real time on a call. You can share a cluster of images to create a “Trail” which is a story for either your friends or the whole world to see. Tribeway is an app that mixes sharing with everyone, and connecting on a more one-to-one basis with your friends and family no matter where they are. Let’s see what Tribeway has to offer.
You’ll need to download Tribeway to get started, and I was a little confused to see that there’s no way to sign up with just your email, but more on that later. Instead, you can either sign up with Google+ or Facebook accounts.
Setting up your account doesn’t really take much, and it mostly does a decent job at pulling in your friends from your contacts on Google+ or Facebook, but you can of course manually invite friends, too.
The main screen of Tribeway is broken up into little sections, and it’s nice and easy to navigate, while also being familiar as well.
Trails are like stories of different images along with a description of what happened or where you went, Featured are public trails from around the web that have become popular and My Trails is pretty obvious. At the bottom you’ll see easy hooks to call or share things with people. As for actually communicating with people, I found adding friends was really quite difficult, and opening up a chat with someone is a little obtuse as well. Once you figure it out though, all you need to do is to tap a box next to someone’s name and then choose a communication option.
The messaging side of the app works pretty well, and it feels a lot like WhatsApp does, which isn’t a bad thing.
Trails are one of the bigger things with Tribeway, and I found a number of people that had shared the recent IPL final.
Here, this Trail features more than one image, and you can go ahead and take a look at different images fullscreen.
Creating your own Trail is pretty easy to do as well, just select your images to get started and you can give it a title and description, too.
One thing that stands about Tribeway is that nothing of yours is saved on Tribeway’s servers, which makes Tribeway a secure and private option, as it keeps you in control of your data. Unless, of course, you choose to make your Trail public.
After spending some time with Tribeway, I can certainly see why a lot of users like it, but there doesn’t seem to be too much on offer here, that isn’t available elsewhere. We can get video calling with real time sharing and more with apps like Rounds, and WhatsApp covers the bases for messaging, too. As for Trails, well there’s Google+ stories for this, but of course Tribeway puts all of this in one, single app. Trails are easy to create as well, and you control the images and your data yourself, too. I do wish that it was easier to add friends and communicate with them, but overall it’s far from difficult. Tribeway does make it much easier to share pictures with your friends and video calling here is much more than just two-way video as you can take a selfie and share images there and then, too.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – Tribeway runs nice and quickly, with little lag or anything of the sort.
- Features (4/5) – They’re really isn’t too much on offer here, but the fact that they’re all put together into one app makes things a whole lot easier and it’s also a much more cohesive experience, too.
- Theme (4/5) – The user interface is both good-looking as well as familiar, and everything is easy to use.
- Overall (4/5) – A solid app that doesn’t quite revolutionize things, but instead gives us a new way of sharing content while also leaving us in control.
Pros
- Works on either smartphones or tablets, the choice is yours.
- Tribeway doesn’t ever have to store information on its serves, unless you absolutely want it to.
- Video calling, voice calling and instant messaging are all completely free here.
- Trails are quick and easy to create, and there’s no need to jump through any hoops.
Cons
- Doesn’t allow you to be logged in to two devices at the same time.
- Message notifications are’t handled all that well. A message from one person won’t tell me what the message is or even who it’s from, for example.
All-in-all, Tribeway is worth experimenting with, but there isn’t the revolution that many of you were looking for. Instead, it’s more of an app that makes it easy to curate and create your own storybooks and who to share them with. All-in-all, it’s a decent app that needs a little extra polish, but if you enjoy free messaging and the ability to stay in control of your content, then this is the way to go.