All Articles Tagged im

[This is a TiPb AT WORK App vs. App Review! The TiPb iPhone Forums voted on their favorite Apps, we took the top two, and now they're going head-to-head. But wait -- there's more! One of the forum voters has already won a copy of the winning App... Congrats duhockey! Want another chance to win? Comment on this post and make sure you leave a valid email address in the comment form -- it won't be made public, but it will be used to contact you if you win! Check out the full contest details, then grab your iPhone and get ready to get things done -- the TiPb AT WORK IM Showdown starts now!]

Instant Messaging has become one of the most popular forms of online communication because it offers instant access, no SMS costs, and unmatched convenience. How Apple doesn’t implement an iChat Mobile on the iPhone is simply beyond us, we at TiPb think an iChat Mobile would be a top contender for an App vs App.

With that said, 3rd party apps are beginning to fill the holes that Apple left open. Two of the more popular, argued about IM Clients available in the App Store are Palringo and BeejiveIM. Though at the core of each is an IM Client, they could not be more different. How do they perform? Which IM Client is better? Who will win the first edition of AppvsApp: AT WORK ?

Read on for the rest of the review!

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If you’re an IM-hound, it’s time for you to head over to iTunes and lay down $15.99 for BeejiveIM. The multi-client software can handle AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, MySpace, ICQ, and Jabber all in one little app. The whole services works via Beejive’s own servers which allows them to include a couple of neat features. The first — they’ll cache your messages so if you go out of service or quit the app your messages will be waiting when you return. The second — if you have an Exchange or MobileMe account, you can punch in your email address in the preferences and Beejive will shoot you a quick email letting you know that you’ve just received a message. Nice. Hopefully that feature will be unnecessary once Apple offers push notifications, but in the meantime it’s a clever stopgap solution.

The only real downside is that the price, $15.99, doesn’t really seem in line with the current $9.99 default price on a lot of apps. I’m of two minds on this issue. Come read the pros and cons with us after the break!

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If you’ve never played around with BeeJive’s JiveTalk, boy, you don’t know what you’re missing! Even though third party apps such as AIM and Palringo are available, I still prefer the look and feel of the JiveTalk WEB APP. I’m sure Crackberry Addicts can attest to JiveTalk’s IM supremacy. And you know what? BeejiveIM (formerly JiveTalk) is coming to the iPhone and from the looks of it, seems to better than ever.

It’s planned for Beta Release in September 2008 but the Boy Genius got his hands on it early and gave away a few details. It supports most IM programs, we’re talking about: AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, Windows Live Messenger, MySpace IM, and Yahoo! Messenger. Plus, it looks like the clean look of JiveTalk extended over to BeejiveIM and it’s rock solid.

An added bonus, BeejiveIM is ready for Apple’s push notification, which will be a godsend for IM programs. Though there isn’t a current release date or price, BeejiveIM can’t come soon enough…AIM blows big time. Click on the Read Link for more pictures.

Photo Credit: Boy Genius Report

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Folks who’ve transitioned over from Windows Mobile (or BlackBerry) to the iPhone (or folks who, like me, are dual-wielding) take heed: one of our favorite IM apps from those other platforms has finally made its way into the App Store. It’s Palringo (iTunes Link) and it’s free. Palringo is an instant messenger app that’s able to talk to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, etc. It will also let you send media files (like photos). There is one downside — you do need to set up a Palringo account to get it all going, but for now at least, if you want multi-client IM, Palringo’s your best option.

That’s good stuff, but the better stuff is coming: Palringo’s custom ‘Vocal IM,’ which is somewhere between sending audio files and VOIP chat. We’re also hoping that Palringo will be able to add background notifications when the iPhone supports it.

I’m downloading now, but I tell ya, I’m excited for this app. Seems like an excellent idea for a lightning review, don’t it?

Although it seems pretty clear that there’s going to be a native chat client for the iPhone 2.0 that will support Google Talk (with background alerts to boot!), there may be those that have a religious injunction against installing applications. There may also be those who don’t intend to upgrade because they don’t want to mess around with losing either their unlocked or jailbroken status. Whatever your reason for not using a native app, Google’s got ya covered with an all new interface for Google Talk, fully optimized for Mobile Safari.

It’s cool and all, but the moment you navigate away (or close) from Safari your status is set to unavailable. On the bright side, though, if you’re a Google-holic it integrates nicely with your contacts and otherwise works exactly how you’d expect a Google Talk Client (inside a web browser) to work.

Just point your iPhone to http://www.google.com/talk to give it a shot.

Ever-watchful Apple Insider brings word on yet another Apple patent drop. This one, published in March, sets the stage for the long anticipated — nay, demanded — Mobile iChat application.

Though the iPhone already includes a somewhat similar, though carrier-bound, SMS app, the need to move away from device-modal technologies (i.e. phone to phone) to more open protocols (i.e., phone to computer to console, etc.) like Instant Messenger is compelling. In answer, Apple has proposed an interface that builds on the SMS app in significant ways:

[T]he ability to start new messages by searching through the contact list or typing the first few letters of someone’s name. Users can also see a past chat history and remove individual conversations from the list. [...] [A] dedicated text field for entering new messages, another would have typed text appear directly in a new message bubble and would replace the text entry box with a list of suggested words.

While the patent could still, technically, be used for SMS or MMS, Apple Insider maintains the former is not mention, while IM is captioned on the image filings.

Personally, I’d love me some first party (multi-tasking?) IM. But how does this relate to the already demoed AOL app? The two work together on the desktop, does that portent a mobile relationship as well? Or is Apple planning on running over them here?

Of course, this could also join the enormous heap of Apple patents that have yet to find any real world application.

What do you think?