It’s Black Friday and there may be one little store you forgot to include in your shopping plans – the App Store! A plethora of apps are having huge sales this weekend, and we have gathered a few of our favorites that you do not want to miss.

• Noteshelf for iPad – $0.99 [App Store link]
• FX Photo Studio for iPhone – $0.99 [App Store link]
• Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles
  • iPhone – $0.99 [App Store link]
  • iPad – $0.99 [App Store link]
• Real Racing 2
  • iPhone – $2.99 [App Store link]
  • iPad – $4.99 [App Store link]
• Flight Control HD for iPad – $1.99 [App Store link]
• Mirror’s Edge for iPad – $1.99 [App Store link]
• Garmin N. America – $29.99 [App Store link]
• Infinity Blade – $2.99 [App Store link]
• A Charlie Brown Christmas – $4.99 [App Store link]
• Checkbook HD – $0.99 [App Store link]
• procreate for iPad – $0.99 [App Store link]
• Navigon
  • North America – $39.99 [App Store link]
  • USA – $29.99 [App Store link]
  • Canada – $29.99 [App Store link]
  • US East – $19.99 [App Store link]
  • US Central – $19.99 [App Store link]
  • US West – $19.99 [App Store link]
• IM+ Pro – $4.99 [App Store link]
• Business Card Reader – $2.99 [App Store link]
• RDM+ Remote Desktop for Mac and Windows – $4.99 [App Store link]
• Flickr HD – $0.99 [App Store link]

Additionally, check out touchArcade for a great list of all of Gameloft’s sales. Also, EA [iTunes link] and Disney [iTunes link] have most of their titles on sale.

This is a just small portion of which apps are having Black Friday deals, so if you find any other good ones, please share them in the comments below!

IM+, the popular instant messaging app for iPhone and iPad, has updated to 5.0 and bring a new feature called Neighbors. With Neighbors, you can locate your friends on a map and chat with people nearby.

Neighbors offers a new dimension of communication in IM+ by providing users the opportunity to find new real life connections and friends with common interests. When signed in, users of Neighbors IM+ will be able to locate friends on the map, chat with local friends as well as initiate conversations with other people who are located nearby.

The update also includes:

• New services icons
• DND/Busy status support
• Account history delete
• Multiple bug fixes

The folks at SHAPE Services generously provided us with a few promo codes for IM+ Pro to give away to our readers! For a chance to win, just let us know what you think of the new Neighbors feature in the comments below!

[$9.99 for Pro - iTunes link] [Free for lite - iTunes link]

How do you IM on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad? We recently asked what Twitter app you used most and got tons of feedback, including that many of you prefer IM to Twitter, or don’t use Twitter at all. Fine then! Ally has already posted up her top 5 IM/instant messenger apps for iPhone but we want to know more!

What service do you prefer for IM on your iPhone? Are you an old school instant messenger user and stick to AIM, MSN/Windows Live, ICQ, GoogleTalk, etc. or do you prefer something BBM-like such as WhatsApp, Kik or Beluga? If it’s a traditional service, what app do you prefer, the official client or something that handles multiple accounts like BeeJive or IM+? Or does SMS (or even Twitter) replace IM for you? And finally do you use the same same services and apps on your iPhone/iPod touch as you do your iPad or computer, or do you mix it up?

Let us know — how do you use IM on iOS?

Interested in knowing which are the best, most must-have instant messenger (IM) apps for your iPhone? Eager to get you chat on via AIM/MobileMe, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, Facebook, MySpace, and/or Jabber but need to know which client supports what and how well? Well read on for TiPb’s top 5 most recommended IM/instant messenger clients for iPhone!

Beejive IM

Beejive is probably one of the most popular IM clients for iOS, and for good reason. It supports almost any messenger client you can think of and is completely customizable. Beejive has been making IM clients for a very long time, and it shows. I remember purchasing Beejive for my Blackberry several years ago. Even then, it was an extremely reliable choice.

It comes packed with features such as support for multiple accounts, push notifications, picture sharing, custom backgrounds and chat bubbles, and much more. I have always found it to be extremely efficient and easy to use. Most hardcore users prefer Beejive due to the amount of clients it supports. It also has the longest session option I’ve ever seen, which is 7 days (eBuddy also offers 7 day support). This means less time outs and having to re-connect.

Beejive has support for the following IM clients –

• AIM/MobileMe
• Facebook IM
• Google Talk
• Jabber
• MSN/Windows Live
• Myspace IM
• Yahoo! Messenger

[$9.99 - iTunes Link]

eBuddy Pro

eBuddy is another IM client that has a pretty large user base. It boasts several great features such as themes, push notifications, picture sharing, and much more. eBuddy also offers a free version of the app that is ad supported and has fewer features. So you can always try before you buy.

When it comes to comparing eBuddy with other clients, it seems to offer about the same Beejive does. A lot of it is really going to come down to personal preference. I personally prefer the overall layout and setup of Beejive but if Beejive wasn’t around, I’d have no issues using eBuddy as my full time messaging client.

eBuddy has support for the following IM clients –

• AIM
• MSN/WIndows Live
• Google Talk
• ICQ
• Hyve
• Yahoo! Messenger
• Facebook Chat
• Myspace IM

[$4.99 - iTunes Link]

IM+

While eBuddy and Beejive have rather large user bases, so does IM+. These are probably the three most used clients for iPhone users. IM+ offers just as much as the previous two. And again, it’ll probably come down to personal preference. It boasts most of the same features of the previous two but also has some other features that make it unique such as viewing Twitter feeds and advanced chat histories. I like the fact that you can access chat history on your device or on the web. This can be extremely convenient for people who need to save chat histories for work reasons.

IM+ also offers a free “lite” version if you’d like to try before you buy. It supports the following IM clients -

• AIM
• MSN/Windows Live
• Google Talk
• Facebook Chat
• Myspace IM
• ICQ
• Twitter
• Jabber
• Skype

[$9.99 - iTunes Link]

Verbs

A lot of people may be asking why I’m including a client that doesn’t support half the features the big 3 support. The answer to that for me is simple; Verbs looks like a client Apple themselves wrote. The UI itself is simply gorgeous. As of now, Verbs doesn’t support the feature set the others boast, but I think it’s a client to keep our eye on.

If the developers of Verbs can add support for several more clients and integrate a lot of the same powerful features, they’ll do very well. Currently Verbs only supports local notifications, meaning if you close out the app from multitasking, you won’t receive notifications. This is what’s keeping me from using it on a daily basis. If they can issue updates to better the app in a timely manner, I think they’ll acquire a pretty good sized user base. It’s also a bit cheaper than some of the other options.

Verbs currently supports the following IM clients –

• AIM/MobileMe
• Google Talk

[$2.99 - iTunes Link]

Kik Messenger

Kik Messenger has an extremely easy to use interface and push is extremely quick. But there’s a catch. Kik is proprietary. The other user must be using Kik messenger also. They provide cross-platform support for iOS, Android, and Blackberry. The downside is that you won’t be able to link AIM and some other popular messaging clients. If your messaging needs are small and the few people you need to talk to have Kik (or you can get them to download it), this will work just fine. Apps like Whatsapp Messenger and Ping! also offer the same proprietary system as well. It’ll really come down to which you prefer to use the most (and probably which one your friends use).

[Free - iTunes Link]

Bonus: Official IM apps

If you only use one IM/chat service and for some reason really want the “official” iPhone app for that service, you’re in luck — there are several in the app store:

• AIM AOL Instant Messenger comes in 2 versions, free with adds and cheap without adds. [Free - iTunes link] and [$2.99 - iTunes link]
• Facebook has built-in chat as well as feed, messages, places, groups, events, photos, and more. [Free - iTunes link]
• Myspace gives you access to chat as well as updates, photos, comments, messages and more. [Free - iTunes link]
• Skype not only lets you use Skype chat but also make VoIP and even video calls. [Free - iTunes link]
• Twitter is technically less IM and more DM (Direct Message) but if you want to chat in 140 characters this is the app. [Free - iTunes link]
• Windows Live Messenger with support for Windows Live, Y!, and Facebook, as well as social feeds for Facebook, Flickr, and Myspace, and access to Hotmail. [Free - iTunes link]

Your top apps?

So there you have them, our top 5 best iPhone IM instant messenger apps to get you going. Be sure to check out our Picks of the Week and iPhone App and Games Forum for more recommendations, and if we missed any of your favorites leave them in the comments below!

Verbs for iPhone is a gorgeous new IM client that just recently hit the app store. It supports GTalk and AIM/MobileMe at the moment. I’m hoping support for more clients like Facebook chat and MSN are added in an update. What really got me hooked on Verbs is the beautiful interface. It looks like an app Apple would build natively into iOS.

Another feature I really like is the fact that it supports Cloud and Droplr file transfer services. I personally love Droplr and use it exclusively for sharing images and video. I chose it as my Pick of the Week a few weeks back. This is an added bonus for me.

I would like to see full push implemented as it currently only supports local notifications. This means you’ll receive notifications only if the app is running or multitasking. If you close it from the multitasking tray, or if iOS closes it, you won’t receive notifications any longer. Not a huge issue for some, but may be a big one for others.

If you’re looking for a decent IM client that comes at a fair price, make sure you give Verbs a try and let us know what you think!

[$2.99 - iTunes Link]

The TiPb forums are naturally a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if you haven’t already, head on over and register now!

• Skype recently released an update to support video calls via 3G. Have you used this feature and do you think it spells doom for Apple’s FaceTime?

• There are so many good IM clients for the iOS platform, which one is your favorite?

• Apple’s App Store is filled with some truly amazing games compatible with Game Center, what are some of your current must-have games?

• How many of you take advantage of the security features in iOS? Do you prefer to use a PIN or password?

See you in the forums!

It seems Microsoft is almost ready to release their popular IM client, Windows Live Messenger for the iPhone and iPod touch. The app is said to arrive this June and will contain photo sharing, chat, and a social stream – which looks to include a Facebook stream and possibly a Twitter stream as well.

Their second major app following Bing, if the software giant is finally warming up the the iPhone platform perhaps Microsoft will get the ball rolling on Office in the not so distant future.

Screen shots after the break!

[Neowin]

While I’m busy editing all the GDC 2010 gaming video we just shot, we’re putting up our second to last look at Macworld 2010. Here Rene and Leanna talk with Alexander Ostroysky, Customer Care at Shape Services about Business Card Reader for iPhone, IM+, and their other apps.

Watch along after the break, and let us know what you think!

YouTube Link

It’s been a long time coming, but instant messaging client, Meebo, [iTunes Link - Free] has finally made it into the App Store. The last time TiPb mentioned Meebo was back in 2008 when Chad reviewed their web app. Since then, several other IM apps have become popular. What does Meembo have to offer?

• Push notifications even when the app is closed
• Stay connected as you move from Edge to 3G to WiFi
• Meebo’s proven multi-network access protocols
• Automatically reconnect if you lose coverage so you don’t miss a message
• Swipe to switch between multiple conversations
• Rotate for landscape mode and a wider keyboard.
• Message preview from the Chats List
• Full Meebo emoticon support
• Searchable Chat History
• Sort chats by most recent or full view
• Support for all the major IM networks, and many more

We’ve been using Meebo for about a week now and it is a very good effort for a 1.0 release. You can really tell the app was optimized for speed, simplicity, and performance as claimed. While the UI could use a little work, it does have all of the bells and whistles imaginable to compete with with the current crop of IM client top contenders.

Screenshots after the break!

BeejiveIM [iTunes Link - $9.99] has always been one of TiPb’s favorite IM clients and it continues to impress with the release of version 3.2. This application is arguably one of the finest IM clients currently available for the iPhone and iPod touch and with the following enhancements it’s hard for anyone to dispute.

• Performance enhancements, faster startup time, especially with large number of chats open.
• Dynamic message loading for chats. By default, only the previous 50 messages (configurable) in a chat is loaded at startup, scroll up to load more.
• Groups button added to buddy list (as in contacts.app)
• Search moved to inside buddy list (as in contacts.app)
• Several bug fixes, including several Facebook sync crash problems.
• Several minor UI enhancements

If BeejiveIM is already in your arsonal of apps what are you waiting for, head to the App Store and update now. For those of you still shopping around for a more than decent IM client, BeejiveIM is top notch.

Let us know how it works for you!

An update from the folks Cerulean Studios on the status of the iPhone version of their popular IM client, Trillian:

It’s been 60 days since our initial and only submission to the App Store. Unlike many of the horror stories you may have read about, we haven’t yet received a rejection notice and we’re not frantically going back and forth with Apple fixing reported problems. Despite sending a steady stream of emails to Apple requesting status updates, we continue to receive generic form letters in response – frustrating, to say the least. As developers, we absolutely understand and appreciate Apple’s need to quality control applications – including the need for additional review time when warranted – but being kept in the dark for two months is a strange way to accomplish this. Cerulean remains ready and willing to work with Apple to ensure the software meets all necessary requirements.

We’re hoping they hear back soon as well. We’re also hoping Apple understands that their lack of communication continues to hurt what’s otherwise a fantastic success story with the App Store. Step up to the mic, will ya? Everything can’t be dead silence and boilerplate on one end, Phil Schiller email on the other…

[Thanks Robert for the tip!]

IM+ Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

IM+ is an IM client with push notification support for 10 networks, including Twitter. I use AIM, Facebook, and Twitter, so these are the only networks that influence this review.

Design and Use

The design of IM+ is nice and intuitive. The bottom toolbar has tabs for contacts, inbox, favorites, status, and more. Under the contacts tab you will find find a list of your contacts organized by account, group name, or no group (selected in settings). If no group organization is chosen, then your contact list will by organized alphabetically based on availability. So, the top of your list will show available contacts, then idle or away contacts. At the bottom, offline contacts are treated as a separate group. There is an option to have offline contacts hidden.

Tapping a contact will open a chat window with that contact. If there is a previous conversation stored on IM+, then the window will include that conversation.

To the right of of every contact, there is an “i” to find more information. Tapping this will display the status of the contact, their user ID, as well as the ability to add to favorites, rename, and delete (provided that the IM service associated with the contact allows).

The inbox contains all current and past conversations. If a twitter account is enabled, then @replies and direct messages are treated as their own separate conversations. It is not possible to have twitter conversations treated as a conversation in IM+; only incoming messages are shown in the @reply and DM threads. Conversations can be easily deleted from the inbox with a tap of the edit button.

When writing a message, there is a smiley face on the left and a keyboard on the right of the text field. Tapping the smiley gives a list of symbols (mostly smileys) that you can insert into the message. Be careful with these though, if the receiving client doesn’t recognize a symbol, it will be displayed in text form, or worse, a smiley face with some symbols attached.

Tapping the keyboard symbol collapses the keyboard and the smiley face converts to an upload symbol. From here you can send your location, a picture, or voice message. You have to be careful with this too because once you make a choice, it sends without confirmation. This is a major problem, in my opinion. I attempted to send a DM tweet with my location and IM+ ignored the text and sent my location as a public tweet! I’m just glad I was at Starbucks and not my house! This also means that text cannot be included with any media type. All media gets sent as a link. Pictures and voice memos are hosted by IM+ and GPS locations send a link to GPSed.com. It would be nice if the link launched Google maps on an iPhone so the recipient could quickly get directions, but it doesn’t.

All links are opened in the built-in browser of IM+. This browser is very cool as it not only allows for reading and navigating through websites provided by links, but you can use it to visit any site by typing the web address into the text field at the top. This is very convenient for those times someone starts an IM conversation when browsing Safari. Just copy the URL before exiting Safari, launch IM+, paste the URL into the browser and quickly tab between conversation and browser. When your conversation is over, just tap the globe at the upper right of the browser to open the current page in Safari. Awesome.

Next is the favorites tab. This is simply a list of contacts that have been marked as favorites. You can add or delete contacts from this list and see more information about them, just as in the contact list.

The status tab is where you can choose your status message (for supporting networks). There are 6 options, Online, On iPhone with IM+, I am here (with link to GPS location), Away, Invisible, and Offline. To add a custom status message or edit the pre-existing ones, just tap edit.

The more tab gives access to your accounts, settings, and in-app web browser.

Twitter

IM+ is not intended to be used as a primary Twitter client, but makes for a great secondary client. It’s convenient to be able to access twitter while holding an IM conversation without having to go back and forth between two apps. Reading tweets on IM+ goes against the conventional style of most recent on top, but this doesn’t bother me because I find uniformity within an app to be important and it doesn’t make sense for normal IM to read like Twitter.

What makes Twitter so great on IM+ is of course push notification. All DMs and @mentions get pushed within 4 minutes of being sent. Ideally, they would arrive faster, but 4 minutes isn’t too bad. The problem with Twitter push on IM+ is that there is no way to choose what you want pushed. It is also a little glitchy and randomly pushes tweets from your timeline that aren’t directed at you. It’s not horribly intrusive as I’ve probably only had at most 5 in a day get through, but it needs to be fixed.

Conclusion

IM+ is very well designed. Although the implemenation of Twitter push is not perfect, it’s a decent first attempt and I trust it will only get better with updates. The advantage of using IM+ is that you can use twitter, hold multiple IM conversations, and browse the web all within one application. At $9.99, IM+ is not cheap, but competive with Beejive. Version 3.2 has been submitted and is in review with Apple, so SHAPE Services has decided to lower the price to $4.99 until release; so if IM+ is something you’re interested in, snatch it up quick and let us know what you think!

Pros

• Push notification for Twitter
• Support for 10 networks
• Basic IM push is flawless
• In-app web browser
• Favorites

Cons

• Twitter push
• Cannot name accounts
• Not all avatars show
• Only one twitter account is supported
• GPS links don’t launch google maps

TiPb Review Rating

IM+ is available for $4.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Doom Resurrection

I was a little apprehensive about this on-rails First Person Shooter (FPS) but id did a great job with it. It controls great, has a nice environment and all the weapons you love from the original. The ability to dodge adds an extra level of immersion as well. This is a fine hold-me-over until Doom Classic gets released soon…[$9.99 - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: iTunes Movie Rentals

I was just out in the field, and my hotel didn’t have a TV or anything. Luckilly I had planned in advance and rented some movies through iTunes, so I was able to watch them on my iPhone while in the hotel room. [Variable - iTunes link]

Jeremy’s Pick: Tap Tap Revenge 2.6

I scored 428,486 on Wrong by Depeche Mode, in Tap Tap Revenge 2, the hot music rhythm game for the iPhone and iPod touch. If you are on your iPhone or iPod touch and have Tap Tap Revenge 2 installed, click the link below: Open Tap Tap Revenge 2 and play the challenge! [free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: IM+

I’ve been hesitant to spend the money on an IM client, but IM+ won me over with the integration of Twitter push. Now, I’m not going to say that IM+ perfectly pushes Twitter, because it doesn’t, but it’s an impressive first attempt. Every direct message and @ mention gets pushed to me 1 to 4 minutes after it was sent. Every once in awhile some random tweet gets pushed through as well, but not often. What about normal IM? It’s works great! I will have a full review of IM+ soon, so stay tuned! {$9.99/month – iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Appshopper.com

Appshopper.com has recently updated their site so that you can now log in to your own account and add apps that you have bought. Appshopper.com will then notify you (optional) when updates come out for your apps. You can also create a wish list for apps that you want to purchase in the future (an also receive updates about price changes). The website also allows different sorting options and rankings of your apps in your collections. [Web link]

Rene’s Pick: Autostich

My photographic aspirations far exceed my talents, and while my experiments at iPhone 3GS HDR are still resulting in misaligned ghost worlds, my iPhone 3GS panoramas have taken a step towards… well, if not the better, at least the easier. Previously, I would take my shots and bring them into Photoshop to assemble a pano. Now, I just use Autostich right on the iPhone, and the results have been excellent. If they could add a cropping feature, my on-device workflow would be complete. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

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!

TruPhone let us know that they’ve updated their iPhone VoIP app to version 3.0 and called up some major enhancements along the way. Among them:

• TruPhone, previously a WebApp, has now gone native for better speed and performance
• It’s new UI makes the app much slicker – specifically the integrated IM functionality
• Oh, and the call quality has been “radically improved”

Other highlights include:

integrated messaging tool unifies all IM communities in a single place, meaning users can manage all their IM communication from a single page within the application – eliminating the need to constantly jockey between different applications or even different pages within an application. IM services currently supported include Skype, MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk.

TruPhone 3.0 is available, for FREE, via the iTunes App Store.

Drop us a note in the comments and let us know how it works for you!

Sure some Skype-come-lately may be making a big splash right now, but Fring has been serving up a lot of goodness to a lot of users for a while already (including those in Canada!) and they’re by no means done yet. They’ve just let TiPb know about their latest update, which not only includes a ton of great new features, but lays the foundation for notifications, which will be getting a huge “push” come iPhone 3.0:

You can now choose whether to show or hide your Offline contacts and regular GSM buddies. And for convenience, we’ve moved fring settings to the general iPhone settings, so there’s no need to open fring each time you want to make a small change.

You’ll also notice a small flag symbol in the top left hand corner of the dialer screen, Tap this and you’ll get a list of countries. Select the one you’re calling and the International dial code will automatically be entered making overseas Skype Out and SIP calls even easier.

We’re also just finishing off a notification add-on for this version. This add-on will notify you when your friends are trying to connect with you whilst your fring is closed. This of course includes all the different services (Skype, MSN, Google talk etc)

To make this as useful as possible, we are conducting a gradual roll-out, starting with the UK and US. This service will eventually be in line with Apple’s 3.0 firmware and new notification feature.

Fring is available for FREE from the iTunes App Store. If you’ve already updated, give it a try and let us know how it works for you!

UPDATE: Skype seems to be live now in the US App Store [iTunes Link]. If you find it in any other App Store’s please let us know in the comments. [Thanks daveizzle for the tip!]

UPDATE 2: According to CBC News, Skype will NOT be available in Canada (though it will be everywhere else). The reason, a patent-license restrictions on Skype’s end that they won’t discuss. Apparently that means no iPhone Skype App for Canada and crippled Skype-to-Skype and IM only for the BlackBerry come may. Sort that out, will you Skype. Now? [via arcterex]

UPDATE 3: Important note for JAILBREAK users: if you’re experiencing constant crashes, be sure to update MobileSubstrate via Cydia.

ORIGINAL post after the jump!

Skype for the iPhone (and second generation iPod touch), rumored last week by Om Malik, is now confirmed by the WSJ as coming to the iTunes App Store tomorrow.

Skype, the popular VoIP (voice over IP) service that sends telephone calls via the internet, will be WiFi only for calls, of course (carriers will protect their income by keeping it off 3G), but you can IM chat anywhere. How does it stack up to existing apps like Fring that already offer VoIP support? CNet, which has an early review up, quotes Skype a saying:

what the other apps use is a workaround that requires them to channel calls through a server and transcode audio, resulting in poorer-quality calls than Skype can do in its own app.

GigaOm seems pleased:

SkypeIn and SkypeOut, along with Skype Chat, are the key features of this new version of the Skype application. This is a native P2P application for the iPhone and the iPod touch. It allows group chats and conference calls and is tightly integrated with Apple’s Address Book.

Gizmodo, by contrast, thinks:

Third party apps like Fring picked up Skype’s slack a long time ago, and lump in multiprotocol IMing, something which gives them a distinct advantage over this official client on the one-app-at-a-time-please iPhone.

[Thanks to John and Icebike for sending this in! And no, we'd have mentioned Om again anyway, even though it would be great if he'd yell at us over Twitter...]

Our own editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn will be live at CTIA 2009, where the official announcement is expected, so if anything else breaks, he’ll let us know. Meanwhile, anyone setting their alarm-clocks to download?

When the original BeeJive IM for the iPhone won our App vs. App Instant Messenger Showdown, Brian thought it was a killer app with some killer features, just a tad shy of IM perfection. We agreed and named it our 2008 TiPby Editors’ Choice Award winner for best Social Networking/IM app. Now that version 2.0 has landed — and Apple’s Push Notification Service still very much hasn’t — can the old best be the newer better? Read on to find out!

What Was

Brian’s original BeeJive review summed things up thusly:

BeejiveIM is simply one of the best applications available in the App Store: it is polished, it is well constructed and it is stable. It overcomes the lack of background apps and push notification on the iPhone by coming up with its own solution. It handles multiple accounts very well and is designed almost perfectly. The BeejiveIM team certainly needs to be commended for such great work. In the end, both IM Clients are great but BeejiveIM is simply in a class by itself.

What Is

The biggest change to BeeJive 2.0 is no more simple nor profound than this: it’s now media aware. Not only can you send plain text, you can send photos and voice notes, and receive and view files (the typical list supported by the iPhone including music, video, MS Office, iWork, etc.) The already super-customizable Settings now lets you tweak the send/receive sounds as well. And integration has stepped up to include hooks into the iPhone contacts list, keeping everything nicely consolidated.

Adding photos and voice notes is managed via a drop down menu. Tap the title bar at the top and the options appear arrayed around the four corners of the menu (other chats, iconified by their pictures, run across the middle for easy switching — easier still if you’ve enabled the geeky shake-to-switch feature in the setting).

Linking a Buddy to an Address Book Card is fairly straight forward: you tap on the Buddy list, tap on the picture of the Buddy you want to link, tap on “Link to Address Book Card” and the contact listings will slide over. From there, tap the “+” sign top left to add a new contact, or choose from an existing one.

What We Hope Will Be

Since the aforementioned Push Notification Service from Apple — where a centralized server sends out sounds, badges, and alerts similar to how calendar events pop up or the Email icon shows how many unread messages you have — is still vaporware at this point, some of our hopes and dreams for BeeJive (and other IM, Twitter, and push-worthy apps) are in stuck in limbo.

Workarounds remain: BeeJive’s server will keep you logged in as long as you like and send you email alerts when you have new messages — which are pushed if you have Exchange ActiveSync or MobileMe set up.

SMS may be desirous to people in the USA, but since I’m not, and most companies can’t afford to send SMS messages outside the USA anymore, it’s not on my radar.

More broadly, as mentioned in last week’s editorial on Twitter, SMS, and how interface is the application, in general we’re still waiting for that one UI to rule them all. Transparently sending and receiving IMs, Tweets, SMS, presence and status, short emails, or whatever pipe you hook up behind them should be the Next Big Thing. If Apple doesn’t build it in, hopefully BeeJive or another player will add it on.

Conclusion

If BeeJive 1.0 was TiPb’s favorite iPhone IM app, then BeeJive 2.0 clearly makes a good thing better. Given the limitations on multitasking inherent in the iPhone SDK, BeeJive has instead focused on improving the media communications experience of IM, something which will no doubt appeal to the types of users using iPhones.

Pricing and Availability

BeeJive IM 2.0 will be (or is, depending on when you read this) available via the iTunes App Store and will run you $15.99. If you want a premium IM experience on your iPhone, it’s definitely worth the premium price.

TiPb Review Rating

(Note, technically I’d give it a 4.75, better than BeeJive 1.0′s 4.5, but still leaving room for the Push Notification enabled version of BeeJive IM we expect… whenever we see the service launched by Apple)

[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!

First Impressions

BeejiveIM

Okay, the $15.99 price tag is hefty and borderline egregious but it doesn’t come without cause. BeejiveIM is perhaps the easiest, most intuitive, and slickest IM Client on the iPhone. Everything makes sense, it supports a ton of different Instant Messaging programs and is very, very stable.

I had no problems logging into my AIM and Google Talk accounts at the same time and was off to chatting in a moment’s notice. The buddy list supports buddy icons, groups and status. The basic layout of the application includes tabs for Buddy List, Favorites, Chats, Accounts, and More

It also provides a very neat feature where it can keep you logged in after you exit BeejiveIM (24 hour max period) and will send you a notification of IM through your E-Mail account. This works best if your E-mail account supports push since it serves as a pseudo-push notification feature. So if you reason that you’re using their servers to remain connected, the $15.99 price doesn’t look as bad.

To put it into perspective, BeejiveIM is essentially everything you want AIM to be but better.

Palringo

Palringo is free. That’s a huge selling point in itself. But make no mistake though, Palringo isn’t some second-class IM Client; it is capable, almost as stable, and possibly even more full-featured.

The unique aspect of Palringo is that it strives to be more than just an ordinary IM client. Palringo serves as a full communication tool—you can send text IMs, voice IMs, or even picture messages—all in Palringo. It is limitless fun to send your buddies snapshots of your daily life and accompany them with voice notes.

However, with Palringo you have to sign up for a Palringo-specific account. Though this sounds easy enough, there have been reports of spam reaching your linked E-Mail account because of Palringo. Also, when I first tried to log in, the app just kept loading and loading and loading. Not until I re-installed Palringo could I finally get access.

Palringo also supports pretty much all the Instant Messaging programs available but its buddy list doesn’t support groups and buddy icons. It also lacks a favorite tab and a chat specific tab.

I found that even though Palringo is free, it is absolutely a full-featured IM Client that doesn’t cut any corners.

Usability

BeejiveIM

I really believe if Apple were to design an iChat Mobile, it would look strikingly similar to BeejiveIM. The buddy list is clear, the fonts are wonderful, and the whole experience is unbelievably smooth. Even the colors and sounds used are consistent with iChat and the iPhone in general—if you showed a Mac user BeejiveIM they would automatically think iChat—it’s simply that well made.

When in a chat, the typing interface is unique and well thought out. Instead of offering a small linear box to type in, BeejiveIM instead chooses to offer a text bubble overlay—the overall conversation moves to the background and what you type comes to the forefront—this offers more seamless chatting. The conversation is still visible because of the transparent text bubble.

Though this method of inputting messages is smart, it isn’t consistent with the iPhone and almost looks out of place in BeejiveIM. BeejiveIM uses a lot of blues and muted greys in their interface so using a black text bubble sticks out like an eyesore.

Though I absolutely love using the text bubble over any other text input interface and certainly appreciate the innovation, I just can’t wholly agree with its design—a more streamline color would have been appreciated.

BeejiveIM also offers support for landscape mode so our fat-fingered friends won’t feel left out. As an added bonus, you can even e-mail the current chat to your e-mail account for future reference. It also has a contact search button so your buddies won’t get lost. One more tip, theres a dedicated SMS button that makes it easy as pie to send SMS through BeejiveIM (which should be cost free to you).

Palringo

Palringo is well implemented and looks good but you can’t deny the fact that Palringo just looks like a third party application. Though it does use a mixture of greys and blues, the base color of Palringo is a deeper black than the iPhone that doesn’t stay consistent with the rest of the iPhone’s apps.

Let it be known, when using Palringo, sending text IM’s becomes bland and boring because of the alternatives offered. When you have voice and picture options, who needs text? It gets to become a minor annoyance when you want to send a text IM because every time you open a chat, it gives you three options: Text, Voice, and Picture. Select the option, than begin typing.

Sending voice messages and picture messages are a breeze, over Wi-Fi and 3G it is absolutely snappy and even on EDGE it can be considered quick. There is also a search bar option for contact search and you can swipe screens to move over to the next window. Palringo also offers support for hyperlinks, making it easier to surf the web and IM at the same time.

Negatives/Annoyances/Gripes

BeejiveIM

Though BeejiveIM is absolutely well-designed, there are still a few missing features and odd choices that make you question your money spent. Firstly, its chat-to-chat movement is less intuitive than AIM and Palringo. Instead of swiping the screen to move to the next window, you tap the top of the screen and select the buddy icon of the chat you want to jump to. Though this method is sometimes more effective than swiping multiple times to jump to a specific conversation, it is largely less intuitive. BeejiveIM also lacks hyperlink support which makes it much more troublesome to access web pages.

I had a few more complaints about BeejiveIM until I realized the features I thought were missing were actually included. BeejiveIM has different depths and layers to grow accustomed to, you won’t learn them all overnight. It is probably one of the most well-made applications in the App Store and has features that make you go “Man, that’s just smart”.

Palringo

There’s also no way to keep your message history, so good luck looking up information on your old IMs. Also, if you misspell the last word in Palringo it doesn’t automatically correct the error instead choosing to send the message as is. I also preferred the font of BeejiveIM over Palringo. The interface just didn’t work as well as BeejiveiM’s, it did the job but it never really raised the bar.

Final Thoughts

It can be argued that Palringo offers an arguably more well-rounded service than BeejiveIM. But when comparing IM to IM, BeejiveIM manages to run away with a victory.

BeejiveIM is simply one of the best applications available in the App Store: it is polished, it is well constructed and it is stable. It overcomes the lack of background apps and push notification on the iPhone by coming up with its own solution. It handles multiple accounts very well and is designed almost perfectly. The BeejiveIM team certainly needs to be commended for such great work. In the end, both IM Clients are great but BeejiveIM is simply in a class by itself.

BeejiveIM Rating:

Palringo Rating:

TiPb At Work Winner: BeejiveIM

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!

On the one hand, $15.99 really is a fair price to pay for an application of this quality, especially since Beejive is incurring costs on their end by maintaining a server. Server-proxy-type IM apps in the past have often been based on a subscription model, so at least we’re not looking at that. The price is also more in line with what apps tend to cost on other mobile platforms. Given all that, $15.99 seems more than fair.

On the other hand, it’s not like App developers who manage to crack the top tiers of apps (which I expect BeejiveIM to do) are exactly hurting for cash when they sell apps at the $9.99 level. Not to mention that, as I said above, $9.99 is the ‘default price’ right now in the App Store, so going above it will ruffle some feathers — just take a look at what Ruben had to say in our forums to see what I mean.

If nothing else, it will be interesting to see whether or not the mindshare effect of all those other apps clocking in at $9.99 will eventually drive BeejiveIM’s price downward, or if Beejive is a harbinger of $10+ prices to come.

How about you? $15.99 seem fair?

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

Read

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?