Quick App 3.0: IM+ with Push Notification for iPhone
Still waiting for its turn to get into the slow-moving App Store, IM+ is ready with version 3.1 which adds support for iPhone 3.0 Push Notifications. Text alerts, badges, and sounds are all supported, and can be individually enabled or disabled both through Apple’s Notifications Settings panel.
IM+ supports a ton of services, including Skype, AOL, MSN, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, and MySpace. Testing it with AOL proved to be a quick, clean experience, with IM+ launching and re-connecting to their server in a brisk and snappy manner on an iPhone 3GS. Copy and Paste also worked well, albeit it only in the text input box (I couldn’t find a way to select or copy text from previous chat bubbles).
Hopefully Apple will approve IM+ 3.1 with Push for the App Store soon. In the meantime, you can take advantage of sale pricing on the previous version, 3.0 (which pushed via re-direct to email). $5.99 via iTunes.
More screenshots after the break!
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:54 am
is this going to support twitter push ?
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 am
Yeah I’m wondering if the big four twitter apps will ever get some sort of push update. I just want to know there are new tweets with say an amount.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:20 am
Twitter push is a long time away. My guess is, if anyone gets it first it will be Tapulous via Twinkle since they already have a pretty massive network for the Tap Tap series.
See here: http://bit.ly/rXRY8
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:22 am
Is this IM+ Push app likely to be a free version, or cost?
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 am
QUESTION: on a slightly different note, is the app store a push notification app? Will it push notify you of app updates?
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Good question
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:54 am
So i did a test,
With Gmail Chat you can be signed into your PC and also on Beejive at the same time, So i had a friend send me a few IM’s to my gmail.
THE EXACT Same time that i saw the message and heard the noise on my PC pop up it showed up on my iPhone…. amazing..
i think if i tried to judge it with a video or something an analyze the milliseconds it would be super super close… it was so close that I could not even tell which one was first or not
Push is amazing.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:57 am
Rene, maybe you should extend your Smackdown theme from last week into this week using IM clients instead of iPhones. We now have 3 competitors looking to be iPhone IM champion.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am
I tried this app and liked it. The inline browser you sould actually type in a URL was a big selling point for me along with the Twitter implication. But it was too slow for me and the transitions were too blocky and not smooth at all. So I came to Beejive which now has Push and LOVE IT. Fast. But no inline browser or twitter but I am in love with it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Sadly beejive does not support twitter and skype. Truth is, there´s no single perfect option
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 am
You guys and your teenie bopper IM apps
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
Rene, does IM+ push also directly open and deep link to the message when the app was not loaded previously and you then wake up the phone from standby? like beejive does perfectly? a video demo of the whole process would be appreciated
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:16 am
Rene: care to chime in on my question above?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Cheers everyone for ignoring my question (Y)
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
@Cardfan:
Yeah, I hear ya, (and I see your smilie).
But realistically these all-inclusive IM things are pretty cool if you have kids, or family far away, or (in my case) customers overseas.
The cost of a phone call is pretty minimal till you cross a national border, and a call represents an open ended commitment of time by both parties, where as an IM is finite and self limiting.
So these things are not just for those in the meat market any more.
Now Twitter…. Give me another year to warm up to that.
I’m just not sure I need to be part of my daughter’s dilemma about which dress to wear, and I’m sure I don’t need to fulfill the self agrandizement of some internet swelling-head.
But hey, opinion’s change.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
@Liam: You’re welcome. Maybe it’s not being ignored as much as it hasn’t been read by anyone yet that knows the correct answer. Cheers for being a whiner though.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:04 am
@Earless:
No. And isn’t it odd? I remarked about this the other day.
You have to launch the app store app on your phone to see if there are updates.
Is there an App for That?
Maybe AppMiner will add notifications in some future release.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Tweetie, where is your push enabled update? App Store, where is the ESPN app update? I’d love to have those two with push enabled but I am still loving my pushed IMs after the BeeJive update last night!
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
My new Beejive update is working great
no Twitter support (meh), but no skype either 
Loving the push though
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I can live without the twitter option. I was sooo tempted to buy this over beejive just becuase i like the swip page option to jump from different conversations vs the 2 taps in beejive. Both were $9 at the time so i figured the bigger bargin was beejive. Does anyone know if the lite version will support push?
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I am dealing with a issue using AIM with PNS and AIM on PC. It works fine when using the iPhone, but if I happen to be at my computer using AIM, the App doesn’t know it and continues to send notifications as I receive responses on my PC! AIM doesn’t see that I am signed on in two locations, either. What’s the work-around for this? Do I have to go into my settings and disable PNS each time I happen to be on my computer?
I also used IM Fowarding prior to this and that worked fine, automatically determining if I was logged on my PC versus near my phone…PNS is redundant in this instance and less intuitive…am I missing something??
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
@icebike you would think the app store would be the first push notification app on 3.0 I wonder why Apple choose not to?
Anyways thanks for the responce…
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I personally think IM+ 3.0 is the better IM chat application for the iphone. Simply because its much cheaper and it supports twitter and Skype, which Beejive does not!
The GUI display is basically the same and the 3.1 upgrade will allow for push notifications; same as Beejive.
I can’t see any reasson why people would choose Beejive over IM + 3.0
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Question..i have the 3.0 version. Will this 3.1 be a simple update or is it a completely different app?
June 24th, 2009 at 1:02 am
@Liam. It had better be an upgrade or I’m going to demand a refund. I bought IM+ because I was promised push. If they now turn around and release that as a separate app there will be trouble.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:37 am
is anyone going to buy a case for their new iPhone? there are some awesome ones coming out already:
http://tinyurl.com/mlbmqx
June 24th, 2009 at 3:52 am
is there any indication as to how long we will have to wait for apple to approve this? great value at £3.50 but i’m looking forlornly at beejive with it’s push notifications and i’m mumbling “yeah, well, where’s skype??”
June 24th, 2009 at 7:24 am
@Liam. would you like some cheese with that whine?
June 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Heres a question, when the update comes out, will I be able to assign custom chat sound notifications? like the MSN sound notification or the AIM one?
I could have sworn that at the OS 3.0 sneek peak they said that you can put whatever sound u want for these push apps…
June 24th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
can anyone tell me if im+ supports sms-out for aim and yahoo, otherwise i have to get the more expensive beejive instead?
June 25th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
California, California! California!
June 25th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Nintendo is better than iPhone! I’m going to the video game championships in California. I have to beat Lucas Spartan in the new game for Nintendo, “Super Mario Brothers 3.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
3.1 is great just dont understand why every time i open IM+ it has to ask me .. con nect to itunes to use push notifications im+ notifications may include alerts sounds and icon badges so whats that all about i only get an ok button just drives me mad
June 25th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Can IM+ keep you connected to the services for > 24 hours? The AIM app doesn’t which is a bummer if I forget to open it once a day.
Also wondering if Twitter push is @replies & @dm only?
June 25th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
@shane Push doesn’t work on hacked unlocked phones. They must activate thruu iTunes
June 29th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I use im+ for facebook chat….Am I still logged on and show available when im+ is closed?
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:41 pm
do you guys know how much time can it keep me connected? (for MSN)
August 10th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
You know you guys can just use textplus for texting. it functions like IM, but works through people’s phones (regardless of whether they’re on an iphone themselves). its really useful–you can create a nicely organized group chat with a bunch of people through their phones.
http://textplus.gogii.com/