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IM+ lite now available for iPad and iPhone
IM+ Lite is now available for iPhone and iPad as a free, ad-supported universal application. Our full review of IM+ for iPad is in the works and should be appearing shortly, so I'll just hit some highlights here: With the exception of Skype chat, IM+ Lite supports the same features as the full version of IM+: Twitter, Facebook, Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN/Live Messenger, AIM/iChat, ICQ, MySpace and Jabber. IM+ has a speech recognition option (as US$0.99 in-app purchase) and allows you to browse the Internet with a built-in browser so you needn't exit the app to follow links. IM+ will notify you via push notifications of new email in Hotmail, Yahoo, or GMail accounts, as well as sending push notifications of new IMs on all supported networks. The ad-free version of IM+ is $9.99, but if you haven't tried it yet, the lite version is a good way to do just that. Unfortunately IM+ still does not support group chats in AIM (although they do work in MSN, and in Skype if you have the paid version). If you rely on that feature you'll still need to stick with BeeJiveIM.
iPad apps: Twitter and social networking essentials
As you might've notice, either here on the site or likely elsewhere on the internet, we at Engadget have somewhat of an affinity to social networking. With a new screen sitting here saving us some screen real estate, we decided to give a number of Twitter and other pro-social apps a go for perennially staying connected to our online friends -- so long as there's a decent WiFi connection nearby. Here's the highlights from what we've toyed with, and stay tuned for even more roundups on the horizon. Twitterific for iPad (free; $4.99 for Pro account) - Definitely the best Twitter app on the iPad so far (pictured above). It works great in portrait and landscape, contextual links conveniently pop out and photos even get special format treatment. No option to upload photos when tweeting, but we're guessing with a lack of a camera, it didn't seem as necessary an addition -- we like to show off our screen captures and saved browsing images, but hey, that's just us. The only deterrent for power users is that you can only view one column at a time, but with lists, saved searches, and all other thread options easily accessible from the leftmost column, we didn't find it too inconvenient whatsoever. [See in iTunes]
