During Macworld Beejive released an update to their IM app which caught my attention. Until last week I have mostly avoided any IM applications on the iPhone -- I'm always recieveing files and pictures via IM and not being able to do that on the iPhone has always been annoying. The Beejive IM 2.0 update solved the problem by incorporating send/receive of various file types including pics and audio. It isn't MMS but if you and your friends are always on IM it's a very good alternative. You can even send and receive between iPhones that have Beejive IM installed!
Playing around a bit revealed that the menus are intuitive for sending and and receiving files. To send just tap the top bar during a conversation once. After you have tapped a menu slides down with various options including buttons to send photos and voice notes. The photos option allows you to either take a picture or select one out of your photo library. Select the voice note feature and the phone automatically starts recording a voice note. You can stop and play back the voice note before you send.
After you have selected and sent your picture / voice note it is quickly inserted in the conversation for whomever you are chatting with to view. The image/audio is neatly inserted directly in-line the conversation with a little thumbnail. If for some reason you want to check what you sent just tap the arrow next to it with in the conversation to view.
The update also allows you to receive and view many files types on your iPhone including most image, audio, video files, PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Powerpoint documents. They appear in-line and you just tap on them to open and view. What's better is that after you have received files you can forward on to to other people in you IM contact lists easily (why is there no forward of text messages in the iPhone SMS app? come on Apple hire Beejive to do things right or something).
Of course Beejive IM 2.0 supports many IM protocols including AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Live, Myspace IM, and Yahoo messenger just like the previous version. The sounds and menus are very macish and during testing all day today I have yet to make Beejive crash.
If you want (in my opinion) the best IM client for the iPhone Beejives 2.0 update makes it the hands down winner. Price $15.99
via the AppStore.
01-13-2009, 02:05 AM
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