Magic Moments and the Big Screen, with Xim 1.3
[written by Colleen Estrada] Just prior to launching Xim 1.0 back in October 2014, I tested the experience with my sister, Kathleen. We were catching up over the phone – she in Tampa on her iPhone, I in Bellevue on my Windows Phone. Kathleen asked me about work and my Hawaii trip. I decided to update her about both, using Xim.
While speaking, I tapped over to my home screen, launched the app and invited her to a Xim of my photos – some coming from my camera roll and some from OneDrive. I heard the xim invitation notification come in on her side and told her to follow the link in the text message.
Now both on speaker and viewing the xim photo slideshow, Kathleen began swiping, ooo’ing and ahh’ing. She paused on the photo of the sea turtle and I interjected, “that turtle was resting right outside our room.”
Kathleen swiped again a few times, pausing on a photo of my son. “Isn’t he handsome?” I asked.
“Yes, just like his Dad,” Kathleen replied. Then I swiped through the next few photos of my kids and mother-in-law, and a magic moment happened...Kathleen exclaimed,
“Wait…wow. You’re seeing the same photos I am. You’re changing the photos on my screen… I guess I’m changing the photos on your screen – they’re together. Wow. Wow. Finally you've done something useful!”Â
I laughed. I suppose I might have been insulted, but to her, all my work on Xbox (and lots of other interesting experiences) had not been particularly useful, at least as compared with Xim.
Xim made our phone conversation better – we had more fun talking together, and it was so simple. Kathleen didn’t even need to have the app to participate (at that point she couldn’t have had it since it wasn’t even released to the stores yet).
As a designer committed to humanizing tech, my sister’s comment couldn’t have made me happier.
We’ve received so much positive response to Xim, but I’ve also been asked (enough times to note it here), “Why are you doing this?” Perhaps improving the photo sharing experience seems mundane to folks. I and my team mates are inspired by the challenge to improve everyday moments, and Xim does just that for photos, but is poised to do much more - there's some powerful tech underpinning this delightful experience. Stating it a bit differently than my personal narrative above, Xim is cross platform, allowing broad participation by people - even those without the app. Xim helps us make better use of our devices, better use of our screens, regardless of our platform choices – software or hardware. Xim enables a unique synchronous experience for people to enjoy whether they are together in the same room or together remotely; whether on their phones or with our release today of Xim 1.3, on their TVs.
After our October launch, team mate Steve Ickman (developer and originator of Xim) took a look at the calendar and with images of Xbox Ones, Chromecasts, Apple TVs and Fire TVs in his head, inspired the team to make Xim even better in time for the holiday season. With Xim 1.3 and your big screen device, simply choose your content, tap the “display” icon to pair Xim with the big screen, and start the Xim. The phone and big screens will swipe, pan and zoom synchronously. Add friends and family to the Xim so they can drive the show or add photos too for a lively and fun living room experience – phone to phone, phone to living room or living room to living room, and all without having to worry about your friend Hai’s Wi-Fi password, what hardware Uncle Lars has, or whether Cousin Shahin has the app installed.
We’d love for you to give Xim a try – big screen or small – and appreciate your feedback as always.
 Members of the Xim Team (testing Xim on 12/16/2014)
