Curate and Export Your Conversations with Anchor 1.1
Starting today, you can curate your Anchor conversations and export them as audio files with one tap — no editing required.
Anchor’s mission has always been the same: to democratize radio by creating the easiest way to record, consume, discover, and distribute audio. Since our public launch this past February, we’ve been extremely focused on the recording aspect, and we can confidently say at this point that there’s no easier way to record audio than by using Anchor.
Which brings us to today. For our latest release, we decided to spend some time on the listening and sharing aspects of audio. This is by far our biggest update since launch (in part because our team has doubled in size — thanks Pat, Maan, and Max!) and we can’t wait for you to try it out.
Curating and Exporting
First off, let’s talk about your own waves. It’s always been possible to start a conversation on Anchor and instantly get replies from people all around the world using their real voices. Now, you can curate the replies in your conversation so that the version you share or embed is the best possible listening experience for your audience.
Best of all, for the first time ever we’re opening up the ability to export the audio file of your conversation with one tap. The app will email you a nicely edited .m4a file which you can share, embed, or easily turn into a podcast.
For an example, you can check out the latest episode of Let’s Talk, the Anchor podcast. Our CTO Nir started a conversation about the unprecedented unfavorable ratings of the presumptive U.S. presidential nominees. After receiving a bunch of replies, he exported it and we uploaded it to iTunes, no further editing needed. (Suffice it to say, this is much easier than the way we were putting together podcasts before!)
Streaming and Discovery
In addition to curating and exporting, this release is also packed with new features to enhance the experience of listening to Anchor. You can check out the release notes for the full list, but here are a few highlights:
- 3D Touch playback support. If you’re on a compatible device, use 3D Touch on the Anchor app icon to select a stream from the app and start playing. This is super handy if you’re driving or walking and just want to start listening without browsing through the app.
- Playback speed. A lot of people have told us that they don’t have enough time to listen to all the waves they want to hear. While we can’t do anything about the number of hours in a day or the amount of time you have off of work, we were able to figure out a way for you to listen to waves at faster speeds. Don’t worry; we made sure no one sounds like a chipmunk. In addition, your playback settings will now be preserved, so if you always listen to the app in telephone mode we’ll remember that.
- Echoes. People love the discovery aspect of Anchor — the rush of coming across an interesting new person from the other side of the world and getting to join in on their conversations. We’ve been testing a beta feature called echoes, which enable people to share their favorite waves with their followers, to give you an even better way to find great people and conversations. As of today, echoes are out of beta, so they’re easy to find and you can use them as many times as you want.
This all new version of Anchor is available now on the App Store, and we can’t wait to hear what you create with it.
By the way: the next time you find audio you love, share it with us on Twitter! We feature our favorites every Friday in a weekly Twitter Moment.
