This weekend here in New York, hundreds of hackers will participate in the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. That same event was the birthplace of GroupMe last year, so we’re really excited to see what gets made this year. We’ll also be presenting an API workshop and talk today to show attendees how to use GroupMe in their hacks this weekend, and our co-founders will be giving a talk on how to create a viable product in a 24-hour hackathon.

In that spirit, we’re so excited to introduce the GroupMe Client Library today. We’re giving select developers access to a collection of drop-in UI components for Android and iPhone, as well as access to our API. You can bring full GroupMe functionality to your app in minutes—and then customize it however you want from there.

Here’s a quick screenshot tour of what it looks like.

This is a very simple sample app we created just to show what integration of our Client Library could look like. It’s fully customizable, so you’re not confined to what’s seen here, but it’s just a quick example of how easy it is to add GroupMe to any app.

GroupMe tab with introduction to GroupMe. Tap “Start a group…”

Put in your phone number (if already registered with GroupMe, the app is authenticated. if not, we send a PIN to register that number with GroupMe).

Create a group by adding people from contacts or by number or email. Hit done…

And you can view, edit, text, and call the group directly from inside this other app. Tap “Open GroupMe…”

…and you can view the full text of the chat from inside the GroupMe app. If you don’t have the GroupMe app, you’re prompted to install it. Tap the grey “Return to” bar, and you are returned right back to the other app.

Only the groups you’ve created in this other app appear in it… your full list of groups, including any made in third-party apps, will still appear in the GroupMe app.

The Client Library for iOS here, and the SDK for Android is here. Inside you will get a Xcode workspace containing two projects: the actual Client Library and a demo app showing the basic usage of the drop-in UI components and making direct API requests with it. Make sure to read the README.mdown file to guide you through bootstrapping the Client Library in your app. The documentation for the API available to the client libraries can be found here.

You’ll be seeing this library in action in the apps of a few of our brand partners to start, but we’re looking forward to seeing where else it can go. All the repositories are public, but you’ll need an access key to use the API. Request a key here.

Now go make some cool stuff!