Chirp is a nifty app that converts files such as photos, notes or links into sound, and broadcasts it so that other devices with Chirp can 'hear' the data. It's been available on iOS for a year and now has finally come to Android.

When you want to send a photo from one phone to another, why should you need cables, go through the grueling process of pairing phones via Bluetooth, set up Wi-Fi connections, or require a handset that has NFC? There are many ways to transfer data wirelessly, but it needs to be easier. Phones have one simple thing in common: the ability to make sound and to hear sound. And Chirp wants to use that to transmit data.

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In a nutshell, digital files are turned into digital audio and the app then lets out a chirping sound. If another device has the Chirp app active, it will listen to the sound and decode the digital data. That's the TL;DR version of the technical explanation of how Chirp works.

Each chirp lasts only about two seconds. It's super efficient and fast -- much more so than Bluetooth -- and doesn't require any special hardware. The only requirement is that your device must have a dual-core processor.

All the data you send and receive on Chirp is stored in the app's history, making it easy for you to access it. The app works with the tap of a single, large yellow button.

What about other sound in the background? "The world is a noisy place. Chirp is designed to cope with traffic sound, music, speech, TVs blaring in the background, and so on," the team from Animal Systems says on its FAQ page. "Roughly speaking, if you can hear it, the app can hear it."

Source: Chirp blog