AppCraver » IM

Beejive IM 3.0 Shows Promise

Derek Walter — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:00:58 +0000

Beejive IM 3.0 With Push has the potential to expand the iPhone’s instant messaging capabilities. Despite a few bugs, it has some great features that IM power users should consider.

Beejive contains all major instant messaging applications: AIM, Google Talk, Facebook, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, etc. If you IM, chances are your favorite service is here.

The interface is pretty easy to navigate and setting up one or multiple accounts you should find it rather easy to start chatting with your friends. The chat screen and buddies list are laid out well and make it pretty seamless to start conversations. Where Beejive promises to be a real game changer is in the ability to send an SMS through 3G, EDGE or Wi-Fi without incurring any messaging fees (you need a Google Talk, AIM, or Yahoo account to do this).

The most promising feature of Beejive is the ability to send SMS messages to anyone directly through Beejive — without incurring any SMS fees. Sending a message involves either choosing a contact from your address book, IM list, or typing in the phone number directly. You then must tap on one of your accounts that supports this feature. Your contact will receive a push notification and can then reply by sending a text.

Tapping on a user’s name at the top of the screen also gave the options to IM, text, or video message. Some of the menu options can get a bit jumbled, but after a bit of use you should get the hang of what to do.

There seemed to be some inconsistency in how often I was logged out after closing Beejive. Even when choosing to stay logged in for 24 hours, I would get a push notification that I had been logged out of AIM or Google Talk. (An update rolled out late July 5 reduced how often this occurred.)

Beejive does many things well — the instant messaging worked without any major issues and getting a push notification made IM far more useful on the iPhone. The number of account offerings made it very easy to get in touch with just about anyone I interact with online. A recent update indicated that Beejive may continue to get better with time.

app_name: Beejive IM 3.0 with Push
rating: 8/10

AIM Frees Your Instant Messaging

Derek Walter — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:30:43 +0000

AIM - Instant messaging has never been one of the iPhone’s strengths. Apple’s limitations on allowing apps to run in the background means that you can’t receive an IM notification while you are working within another program. Close it down, and you are off-line. A new version of AIM seeks to change this and give you a bit more multitasking flexibility.

It works by sending you a text message that you have a new IM – even when you do not actively have the AIM app open. AIM keeps you logged on for up to 24 hours after you close out of the app. So if one of your AIM buddies wants to start a chat session, you will get a text notification that they are messaging you. Then you can fire up AIM and start the conversation. AIM will also text you when the system logs you off. So making sure you have a flexible SMS plan is probably a good idea.

AIM takes interacting with mobile devices one step further by giving you the ability to send a text message to another phone. That person can then reply by SMS and you will receive it within AIM as an IM. If you are not using the app you will get a text message notifying you of the reply.

Setup was pretty easy, especially if you already are an AIM user. All your current buddies are on the list and available for chatting with. There is a series of screen to taps through that shows who you have on your list, and who is offline or available.

The attempt to give you some flexibility in instant messaging is admirable and another way to stay in contact with others through your iPhone. The app suffered a few hiccups during testing. For example, I did not always get a text when I was still “signed in” and IM’d by a friend. Managing the system of text messages is also a bit cumbersome. Should you choose to get a message every time you receive an IM, expect for the messages to pile up.

AIM is a good addition to your iPhone if you are a frequent AIM user and want more access to your buddy list. If you are more of a casual IMer, the free version will probably work just fine without the extra features available in the newest version.

app_name: AIM
rating: 8/10

BeeJive, When IM Matters More than Anything Else

Michael Alexander — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:15:31 +0000

There’s been a lot of buzz about Beejive’s BeeJiveIM lately. That’s easy to understand because BeeJiveIM is a very capable IM app. It puts everything IM-ish under one roof, which other IM apps don’t do quite as well. But geez Louise, is it really worth $15.99? Well, that depends on just how much you use IM when you’re on the go.

Beejive supports AIM/iChat/MobileMe, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, MySpace, GoogleTalk, ICQ and Jabber, allowing users to access all of their IM clients from one user-friendly interface.

Beejive enables you to manage buddy lists, turn on status messages, real-time chats, push email, click to call, be connected after you close the app, send email directly from the chat screen and send and receive voice clips and images. You have portrait and landscape modes to work with too. However, other IM apps do many of the same things.

One feature I believe is unique is BeeJive’s ability to automatically restart following dropped phone calls or the loss of cell coverage. I also like the idea that my usernames and passwords are stored on my iPhone and not on Beejive’s servers, even though I seldom share state secrets with my chat buddies.

Is BeeJive able to justify its considerably higher price compared to free IM clients such as Pinger, Fring, NimBuzz and Palringo? All these apps, including BeeJive, have IM as a primary function. What’s the value-add?

Some of these apps do things that BeeJive doesn’t such as support Facebook and Twitter. They also feature the ability to make calls via VoIP, group chats, location services and other necessities.

Don’t get me wrong: None of these other apps are perfect or more capable than BeeJive. Some are ad supported, some put your usernames and passwords on their servers and at least one I’ve used has a penchant for crashing.

If you use IM all the time when you’re on the go and that’s what you care about most, then Beejive probably is worth the price. Of all the IM apps, it does that single thing better than any other app. However. if you use IM less often, give the others a try. Sure, they have warts, but they’re free and some come with a few useful features that BeeJive lacks.

app_name: BeeJive
rating: 8/10

Pinger Phone Wraps It all Up in One Integrated Package

Michael Alexander — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 20:30:01 +0000

Pinger Phone is designed to integrate instant messaging and social networking into the iPhone experience, says Joe Sipher, a co-founder of Pinger. IM offers presence (the ability to know who is actively online), is faster and can be cheaper than text messaging, Sipher argues.

Also, social networks currently don’t exploit the advantage provided by iPhone Contacts as a communications hub, he says.

Having everything revolve around iPhone Contacts has become a prerequisite for any app that involves sending messages or making phone calls, so the latter point is moot, if you ask me.

The company’s new app, Pinger Phone, has four primary functions — mail, mobile, IM and text — which are integrated into one menu so you can manage both phone contacts and friends on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and communicate with them by whatever means suits the occasion. You can see whether someone is available via IM or on their social network feeds and then elect to call, text, IM, email or send a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter message.

Pinger Phone works with AIM, Yahoo! IM, MSN IM and Google Talk. The app automatically switches to the horizontal keyboard mode to make entering text faster and more accurate.

Pinger Phone is free, and supported by advertising. I’ve had Pinger Phone on my iPhone for a couple of days and so far, it works as advertised.

It’s sure a dull-looking app, though. It’s got the kind of look that could put you to sleep on a packed, sweaty bus bouncing down a hot, dusty road. I think if you aspire to do cool things, you should look the part.

Although I doubt I’ll do much IM-ing, I like being able to do it in landscape mode. Now, if I could also have it for my texting and emailing, I’d be happy.

app_name: Pinger Phone
rating: 8/10

IM+ Chat Program Falls Flat

Issen Alibris — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:30:36 +0000

There seems to be a new chat program popping up every other month and old screen names we can’t get rid of. In today’s chat market it’s hard to find a good utility or an app that offers total integration between all of the old programs that have emerged over the years and the new ones. IM+ offers users the opportunity to combine their AOL, YAHOO, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ and MySpace instant message screen names and buddies all in one place.

Using IM+ is intuitive. From the settings tab it’s pretty easy to add accounts. In this menu you may turn any one of your added messenger programs on or off with the tap of the screen. IM+ lets users update their status in four different ways by appearing online, away, invisible or offline. Hit the inbox button and you’ll be given a list of your instant messages by your friends screen names in a folder style. If you tap on any screen name you’ll be able to see instant messages and type out a response. Checking out your contacts is easy because a simple button at the bottom of your screen shows everyone who’s online in alphabetical order.

While IM + has good intentions by combining all of the most common instant message programs. It does have some points of improvement. The biggest problem is organization. It lists every contact from each of the instant message programs in alphabetical order automatically. But there isn’t an icon of any sort that distinguishes the instant message client. It does have an easy two -step touch slide delete option but things can become a bit convoluted if you have a large buddy list.

The other problem with IM+ is that you can’t tell user status. If someone is using a mobile phone or if they’re “away” there’s no official way to differentiate between them.

Among the many problems that might be seen as a potential downside to this app is the fact that the app is $4.99. It hardly seems justifiable to many people who are used to free instant messaging programs that are loaded with tons more features ie video chat, file sharing etc.

rating: 6/10
app_name: IM+

AOL Instant Messenger — needs the Next Gen Firmware

Fred Krueger — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:20:37 +0000

AOL Instant Messenger for iPhone is a fine product, and works just the way you would expect it to — with one major flaw: unless the application is open (and currently you can have exactly one application open at a time), you don’t get alerted when you receive a message.

How and when Apple will fix this remains to be seen. They have announced a change to the way they will handle “push technology”, and in particular, allow apps to push messages to the Phone in general, even when they are not active — starting around November. But with the high number of bugs and problems with MobileMe and Apps crashing, i wouldn’t hold my breath.

app_name: AOL Instant Messenger
rating: 7/10