What is the Line application

Line is a modern, convenient and top-notch service for instant messaging, transferring files, arranging video- and audio-calls and text chats. All of the basic app features are available entirely for free, though microtransactions are required for purchase of supplementary stickers and in-game items and goods.

Line is a cross-platform software initiative. Currently it supports Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Windows and macOS platforms.

In this article, we will elaborate on what is the Line app, what are its primary designation and system requirements, and say a few words about the history of the product.

Who is the creator of Line, and how was the project originally created?

The history of the messenger starts from March 2011, when the employees of NHN Japan company, an affiliate of the South Korean IT-corporation Naver, designed the first build of the product. Back then the Tōhoku earthquake has severely damaged the infrastructure of the Japanese telecommunications and told the staff of NHN Japan to create an application for stable communication, which could rely on Internet-based resources in case of various environmental disasters.

After the first release of the app for public use in June, the popularity of the Line tool has raised headily in Japan — the native country of the primary project developers. By late October, Line has tackled a serious server overload. After thorough discussion, the decision has been made to improve the scalability process, and NHN Japan decided to use the HBase platform as the main storage for groups, contacts and user profiles. After eighteen months of initial release, the project has overcome a threshold of 100 million users, six months later — 200 million stage, and by November 25, 2013, the quantity has reached an indicator of 300 million simultaneous users worldwide.

From July 3, 2012, the founder of the initiative has claimed the implementation of new features — Timeline and Home. The initial idea of the new additions was to allow the users to post the information about their latest news publicly in real-time mode. Basically, the principle of the new options was similar to the status updates in social networks, such as LinkedIn or Facebook.

On February 6, 2013, the successful work over the messenger resulted NHN Japan to initiate a new branch company entitled as Line Corporation. The mission of the formation was to continue development of web-resources such as Livedoor blog and ISP platform, the Naver Japan search portal, and, sure, the messenger portal within the worldwide web. The interactive games, which belonged to the Line Game trademark, were still hold by Hangame Japan. One more public company Line Plus Corporation is responsible for overseas markets. When the innovations have become active, the major stocks of Line Plus were owned by the Line Corporation brand (60%). At the same time, the remaining stock shares (40%) were managed by the Korean NHN Corporation enterprise, the successor of the project creator.

Line: features and options

In this section we collected information about the options and abilities of the project to make your final selection of the IM-messenger easier and simpler:

• Free chatting from anywhere and anytime. You can start a one-on-one or group chat with your friends or colleagues from any of your compatible devices, either desktop or mobile. You can use both Android smartphone/tablets and iPhones/iPads gadgets, as well as PC or Mac.
• Free voice and video calls. The owners of Android devices can also use the LINE Lite app, which has reduced functionality, but lower system requirements and less usage of operational resources.
• Stickers and emoticons for any taste and preferences. With over 10k stickers, you are always capable to express your thoughts and feelings. The Sticker Market includes worldwide famous characters, as well as exclusive characters.
• Sharing photos, videos and voice recordings. With this particular service, you can exchange not only media included into attachment, but also voice clips, phone numbers and data about your current location by GPS.
• Get the recent info and news about favorite artists, brands and trademarks. After you add the official account of your favorite musician or actor to your friends list, you will also be informed about the latest news about them, which is published exclusively for the messenger community.
• Interactive feed, which includes updates and news from your friends and subscriptions. As the best social network practices offer, you can also publish your personal info within the feed
• Keep — a unified storage for your favorite messages, photos and videos. You don’t have to search for your private files anymore, now they are secured in a protected and safe location. You can also share them by instantly accessing the needed file object right from the Keep.
• Add new friends to the connections list in the easy way. You can use the “Shake it!” feature to instantly add new friends. Moreover, you can use the Line ID or QR-code for the same purpose.
• Broadcasting the unforgettable moments with the live-video component. Let others know about the especially important moments of your life time, from the first days of your kid in school to a party with friends.
• Face effects and filters. The wide assortment of mimics and charming expressions to make your conversation more vivid.
• Face Play — another way to arrange a gaming competition with your friends. You can find an enormous variety of built-in games, so you can start playing any of them right away. In addition, you can share screenshots without quitting the primary game or Timeline add-on interface.
• Line Today service. Within the Line Today subscription, you find recent news on entertainment, sports and cultural events. As a bonus, you can find fun community content, live broadcasts, videos, and more.

System requirements of the Line messenger

The Windows owners can download two versions of Line:

• for Windows 10 — from Windows Store
• for Windows 8/8.1/7 and earlier builds — by direct link.

Windows 10 version requires 10240.0/14393.0 or higher build of the latest operating system from Microsoft to be installed on your computer formerly. The older app version doesn’t put any considerable obligations on your PC, also any Windows version starting from XP would suit.

If you have Mac or MacBook, make sure that your OS X version is the 10.10 version or later. One more requirement is the 64-bit processor.

For Android smartphones and tablets, the mobile OS 4.4 version or later is a primary condition. Those who have an earlier Android build would need to upgrade.

The iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch users are suggested to work with iOS 10.0 or later build to be able to install the Line mobile messenger version on their Apple gadgets.

Line is a unique solution for any messaging and other social-related purposes, including video broadcasting, applying filters and effects, and playing mini-games. If you want to know more about the mentioned builds of Line, refer to the following FAQ section.