Instant Messaging
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Official ICQ client coming to Windows Phone
Of the 100 million registered ICQ accounts, we really must wonder how many of them remain active. Still, the vintage instant messaging platform remains quite viable in some regions, and we're happy to report that the software's new owner is treating both it, and Windows Phone, with the respect they deserve. That's right, the Mail.ru Group has announced the upcoming version of "I seek you" for Microsoft's mobile platform, and from what we can tell, things look mighty fine. Of course, whether we actually choose to install the software onto our Titans and Radars is another matter entirely. Maybe one day, when we're feeling wistful for the past... [Thanks, Dryab]
Daily Mac App: Adium
Instant messaging is an essential part of modern communications. On the Mac, we're blessed with the excellent iChat, but Apple's built-in IM solution doesn't connect to every protocol, so that's when we turn to Adium. Adium is a great long-standing piece of open-source Mac software. The reason it's so good is that it connects to almost every IM protocol under the sun. Gtalk, Facebook IM, Live Messenger, Yahoo, AIM, Jabber, IRC, you name it, Adium will let you chat using it. The Swiss Army Knife of chat clients, Adium not only lets you connect and chat, but does it in a very customizable, yet Mac-like way. You've got Growl support, plugins, a menu bar icon, sounds, notifications and alerts for every action and a highly recognizable icon, even if it doesn't scream "chat" to you at first glance. Setting up Adium couldn't be easier. Select the desired protocol, plug in your login details and you're good to go. Your buddy list is downloaded from the respective sites and blended together in one list. You can sort by protocol or create your own groupings. Cross-protocol chat isn't possible for those that don't have interoperability, but that's no fault of the chat client. Adium is purely text-based, there are no built-in options for video or audio chat at the moment, but you can send files for protocols that support file transfer. Adium is available for free from the Adium team's site, and works great on almost all versions of OS X including Lion. If you've got friends spread across a plethora of IM protocols, let Adium simplify things and get you chatting to them all from one great client.
Windows Phone 7 gets its Kik, too
It would seem Kik, everybody's almost favorite free messaging service -- except those on a BlackBerry, perhaps -- has added Windows Phone 7 to its list of supported platforms. What's Kik you ask? Well, in case you've been hiding under a rock, Kik's an instant messaging app with BBM-like features such as message status which lets you know if your message has been read, received, or if whomever you messaged is typing back. Throw in photo sharing and the fact that it is free, and well, you get the idea. While any mobile messaging app of this sort requires some selling on the part of the early adopters we'd guess by the uptake on both Android and iOS that Kik will quickly become a pretty hot property on the Windows Marketplace. So tell us, are you as hip and cool as Jon and Jessica and "down" with this type of service? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.
Shocker! Instant messaging gains popularity as TXTing declines, BBM to blame
Apparently, those young'uns just love their BBM. According to a report by the research group Mobile Youth, young folk (read: those of you between 15 and 24) are increasingly abandoning SMS in favor of instant messaging apps, with texting expected to drop off 20 percent over the next two years. The main culprit? BlackBerry Messenger, which now boasts over 39 million users, many of them living outside the US. In fact, it's in the UK, Indonesia, South Africa, and Brazil -- all popular markets for BBM -- that Mobile Youth expects texting to dwindle the most. And if BBM is to blame, well, that drop-off could be just the beginning.
RIM preparing to bring BBM to iOS and Android, change everything again?
Woah, now here's a juicy rumor to start your Thursday morning off with. BGR reports word from multiple trusted sources that RIM intends to take its BlackBerry Messenger outside the cozy confines of the BB ecosystem and straight into its competitors' app stores. BBM is reputedly all set to make its debut as a messaging app on both iOS and Android, though the specifics of what it might cost you have yet to be ironed out. It'll come in a stripped down version, you'll still need to own a BlackBerry for the full-flavored BBM experience, but that should nonetheless be extremely welcome news for folks finding themselves torn between platforms. The Android version is expected this year, say the sources, while the iOS app may take a little while longer thanks to Apple's more capricious approval requirements.
Trillian gets there first, brings Continuous Client features to latest build
Well this is rather awesome. Cerulean Studios may have just become the first company in the world to implement some of the ideas I hatched in an editorial I wrote about a little something called the Continuous Client. If you need a refresher you can read the article here, but the gist of my argument is that the work you're doing in applications on your phone, tablet, or PC should follow you around. You shouldn't have to restart each conversation or refocus your Twitter stream or re-open applications and load up files you were working on. Your devices (and their clients) should talk to each other so that you can placeshift your session from screen to screen. Well, believe it or not, someone took this to heart. The makers of the super-popular chat client Trillian have implemented Continuous Client features in the latest beta build for Windows (5.0 build 30). Amongst the new features added is the ability to share chats between devices "in realtime," allowing you to switch from PC to phone to iPad without losing the thread. Using "presence technology" the client can make logical guesses about when you're at (and not at) your PC or phone, and reroutes your notifications accordingly. The company has a blog post on all of the features of the new build, but of course, the best way to experience it is to download the software and try it out for yourself. We'd love to see your reactions and find out if it's making life easier, so sound off in the comments below.
VoxOx combines all your contacts into one Mac client
Since we're The Unofficial Apple Weblog, we kept it pretty Apple-oriented during last week's CES conference. There were plenty of interesting Windows apps and other smartphones and tablets around, but if it wasn't Apple-centric, we usually walked past it to find something more our style. But VoxOx is a notable exception -- it's an app and a service that runs on both Windows and Mac, and we sat down with a few members of the team to talk about the app and where it's headed next. The idea for VoxOx is that it encompasses all of your communication in one app. Phone calls, IRC, instant messages, SMS, social networks and so on, are handed through VoxOx's client. The big news at CES was that the VoxOx client was updated, and VoxOx told me that the Mac version is being reworked according to feedback to look more like a Mac app, according to the Apple HIG. Once inside the app, it's quickly apparent that VoxOx is powerful -- you can merge contacts from multiple networks and even keep conversations going across protocols. There is a charge to call out (just like Skype), but there's never a charge for inbound calls, so family and clients can call your computer directly, and/or you can get those calls routed off to any other number. There's even a translation service now integrated into the client, so you can see real-time translations of chats back and forth to other countries. Unfortunately, VoxOx's biggest issue is that it's not very open -- you can't pull in contacts from another app, and you definitely can't bring them out of the service easily. The UI looks better than it used to, I'm told, but it's still not what I'd call a "beautiful" app. Still, if you're looking for a way to consolidate voice communications, VoxOx seems a compelling option.
Christmas lights hack puts your IM contacts on the wall above your desk (video)
As you well know, if it exists it can be hacked. And what better way to ring in the holidays than by taking a string of GE Color Effects G-35 lights and -- thanks to some hand-crafted drivers and a Microsoft .NET Micro Framework embedded controller -- turning it into a IM notifier? Of course, these aren't any old Christmas lights: between the ability to change colors and the preset light shows, these guys boast a feature set that Clark Griswold would die for. And that's where a Microsoft employee named Andrej Kyselica comes in: using the Microsoft Lync 2010 Office Communications Server, our man has rigged a system that allows him to assign each of his instant messenger contacts to a particular bulb, which changes color according to each contact's status (for instance, green indicates that someone's available, white means away, and purple means out of the office). Pretty sweet, eh? Check out the video after the break for a closer look.
Updated Yahoo Messenger app now live in App Store, 3G video calling bonanza awaits you
Not stoked on Skype or FaceTime? Looks like you've got another option, bub. That overhauled Yahoo Messenger app we told you about 48 hours ago is now live in the App Store, offering multitasking on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, 3G / WiFi video calling (iOS to iOS, iOS to Android or iOS to PC) and instant notifications. Users interested in making voice calls can also tap into their bucket of Yahoo Voice Phone Out minutes, but it'll only work in America, France, Germany, Spain and Singapore at the moment. Hit that source link to get your download on, cool?
Yahoo messenger coming to iPhone and Android with cross-platform 3G video calls
You'll be seeing a lot more of the good ol' Yahoo smiley on front-facing cameraphones soon -- the web portal's VP of Mobile David Katz says that a new Yahoo! Messenger with cross-platform video chat is headed to Android and iPhone. Originally confirmed for the new T-Mobile myTouch, it's presently been submitted to the iTunes App Store for review. It'll reportedly work over both 3G and WiFi connections and freely conduct video calls with any other device running Yahoo! Messenger, including webcam-equipped PCs. Look out Qik, Fring and Tango -- there's a new sheriff in town.
LG strolls into Town with C300 featurephone, offers portrait QWERTY for text addicts
Still on the lookout for an affordable QWERTY dumbphone? You might be in luck, as LG's just released this eye-catching Town C300 to cater to your texting and IM addiction on the cheap. Just like its predecessor, this new handset includes Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, and push email integration, along with FM radio, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 2 megapixel camera from the hardware camp. The damage? Just a mere £69 ($108) from Orange, but don't tell your friends -- keep the extra booze money to yourself. %Gallery-102995%
Windows Live Messenger comes to iPhone
It's certainly not the first app Microsoft has crafted for the iPhone -- the Bing app has been alive and well for a while now, among others -- but you could argue that this is a pretty important one. Windows Live Messenger has just launched for iOS, and it's quite a bit more than your basic IM app with support for some manner of social service aggregation, media-rich status messages, Hotmail integration, and even built-in photo effects. Many folks will want an IM client that can span a bunch of services at once -- but if you're a Windows Live fanatic stuck in an iPhone world, this should be just what the doctor ordered. Let's hope the experience is just as good on Windows Phone 7, right? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
New Trillian alpha available for the Mac
A Mac version of Cerulean Studio's Trillian has been years in the making and as of this past Friday, the alpha build of the software is finally out in the wild for Mac users to try. A private alpha has been available since 2007. Since I dropkicked PCs out of my household five years ago, I've switched between iChat and the wonderful Adium. Trillian has a lot to live up to when it comes to instant messaging on the Mac. Adium, to start with, is free. Trillian costs Windows users $25USD to get full access to all of its features (the Alpha version for Mac is free). As stated when the original alpha was released, Trillian is rebuilding its software for OSX from the ground up. I downloaded a copy of the alpha to try, and I am not impressed. While Cerulean Studios did warn that the alpha version of Trillian is lacking features, the entire experience was just unpleasant. No buddy icons from any of my IM accounts came over and the program looks nothing like the picture included with this article (taken from Cerulean Studio's blog announcement.) Having one-button clicks to access your different accounts is nice -- when it actually works. The most glaring of the missing features is no group chat support, which will be a turnoff for many. Other missing features include a lack of voice and video support, chat logs and more. You have to sign up for an Astra account to even start using the IM client. When I was on Windows, the free version of Trillian was my IM client of choice. The Mac version has a lot to live up to, and maybe it could hold its own against its Windows big brother one day. But for now, I'd recommend sticking with much better, and free, alternatives such as Adium and Pidgin. [Via Lifehacker]
Undead Second Life instant messages, not so instant actually
Within the last 24 hours, we've been getting widespread reports of Second Life instant-messages suddenly being delivered weeks after they were originally sent. Initially it seemed to be a single burst of such messages that were unclogged from some creaking subsystem and delivered in a bunch, but it seems not to be the case. We've experienced this ourselves over the last day now, with messages suddenly popping out of the Second Life grid, as if they were fresh and new. Initially it seemed that it was messages that had gone undelivered in the last five weeks, but we've just seen two that were originally sent, and apparently remained undelivered for over six months.
First Look: WhatsApp
There's a lot of buzz about iPhone IM clients.Other applications have gotten a lot of coverage for allowing iPhones to chat from their AOL, Google, ICQ, Jabber or a host of other screen names. WhatsApp [iTunes Link] is different, calling itself an "iPhone-to-iPhone chat application" that provides direct messaging between iPhones. The application features push notifications and provides functionality similar to SMS. So why bother trying it? The app makes it easy to chat with other iPhones with no need for screen names, logging in and out or the added cost of text messaging and cellular charges. It's a lot like an iPhone version of Blackberry's popular messaging service. You'll also quickly and easily be able to point out which of your contacts have WhatsApp installed. Even if you're offline, your messages will be saved until you're back online. Other cool features include the ability to "Broadcast" or send a message to multiple users, emailing of your chat history and sound and visual badges to show your unread message count. Users can also see when their friends are typing as well as the last time they checked their messages. WhatsApp is free "for a limited time" so head on over to the App Store and grab it. Here's a few shots of the app in action: %Gallery-78242%
Walk and talk feature added to Agile Messenger for iPhone
There have been some important upgrades to Agile Messenger [iTunes Link] since I last wrote about the multi-client chat app. Notably: a "walk and talk" feature that uses an iPhone camera to give you a view in front of your phone if you want to chat and walk at the same time. That's useful if you're going to type and walk around, but the under-the-hood upgrades are worth a mention as well. The biggest update for me was the ability to search contacts. If you have dozens of contacts, being able to search by name is essential; scrolling a huge set of lists is a chore. Searching works great in Agile Messenger, I'm happy to report. Push notifications work exactly as they did before. There are some cosmetic tweaks and performance tweaks, and I noticed the performance seemed snappier overall. Still, BeeJive recently added (somewhat limited) chat room support, which Agile still lacks. The iPhone IM wars are still on! Agile Messenger is only $1.99 for the next couple of weeks, which is a steal for the normally $9.99 app. If you use IM a lot, it's a great experience.
$38 Zipit Wireless Messenger receives Linux injection, becomes $38 netbook
Poor Zipit. As a $149.99 instant messenger client nobody got particularly excited about you. Even now, as a $38 IM client you aren't exactly in high demand -- but as a $38 portable Linux machine, well, that's another story altogether. The machines have been tweaked before, but the latest and greatest is this hack from Hunter Davis, who can turn a virgin Zipit Z2 into a full-featured Linux machine in under five minutes, as shown in the video below. To do the same all you need is Hunter's hacked firmware and a microSD card to throw it onto. Once completely tweaked you'll get full mouse support, WiFi connectivity, and even audio output so that you can rock some tunes on the go -- though the command-line interface won't make it the most compelling PMP ever. With only a 300MHz processor and 32MB of RAM we wouldn't go compiling our COMP-SCI 101 homework on here, but this little firmware refresh certainly makes for a tastier experience than before. [Via lilputing]
iPhone 3.0's 'broken' push messaging caused by unlockers, dirty keys
Earlier this week there was something of a brouhaha when some iPhone 3.0 users started receiving random instant messages seemingly intended for other folks. Push notifications were one of the big additions in this release and so naturally a lot of people claimed the feature was broken. They were partially right, but wrong in blaming Apple, as it was they who had themselves broken it. The iPhone generates unique public/private keys upon activation that identify handsets to secure those pushed IMs, and it should come as no surprise that unlocking tools use duplicated keys to facilitate illicit use. You know what happens when you share dirty keys, right? With single identifiers registered to multiple phones instant messages are getting zinged all over the place rather than to their intended destination, a feature we're guessing spammers will start exploiting in three... two...
Create unique avatars and contact pics with Persona
Some people like to have unique avatars for forums and instant messaging clients. I don't. My avatars usually end up being silly pictures of myself because I'm a shallow narcissist...and a bit lazy.However, for those more creative than I, Persona [iTunes link] is a nice iPhone app in which to invest the price of a quarter-pounder. It allows the user to create a cartoon face by choosing from a variety of facial features. Hair style, eyes, nose, beard, and more are all up for grabs. When you're done creating a mini-you (remember my personality issue described above), you can set it as the contact picture for any of your iPhone's contacts. You can also save your creation to the Camera Roll where you'll be able to export it via email or MMS (assuming you have the new 3.0 firmware and don't have AT&T), publish it to MobileMe, or use it as your wallpaper if you did a particularly good job. Once on your computer, you'll be able to use it as the avatar for that cute-cat-picture forum you visit eight times each day.Persona is simple enough; in fact, perhaps too simple. The faces tend to look very similar as the options are quite limited for a dedicated app such as this. Also, what's going on behind my left shoulder? Every avatar I create is staring in that same direction! Choosing from the available options isn't very intuitive. You choose the "parts" category and then pick the individual attribute, but no moving or resizing of the facial features is allowed. And very few accessories are presented, other than odd inclusion of a plethora of choices for nicotine deployment. (Note to self: see if the folks at Persona are sponsored in any way by Philip Morris.)Overall, it's a nice idea for an app that will have moderate appeal to the forum crowds. I doubt you'll be using it again and again, though, because the app just doesn't offer much depth. But it's the user interface and lack of extensive options that tend to make the $2.99 $.99 a bit hard to swallow.[NOTE: Thanks to those readers that pointed out the incorrect price. The developer's web site showed $2.99 when I wrote this, however the iTunes store had it at $.99. I have talked with Alfonso Bozzelli, the app's author, and he is changing the site to reflect the correct price -- $.99.]
Giveaway: four lucky winners to get Agile Messenger for iPhone/iPod touch
We'll have a head-to-head comparison of the just-released Agile Messenger [App Store link] versus Beejive in a few days, but why not test drive Agile Messenger yourself first? Four lucky winners will get to do just that, courtesy Agile and TUAW. Just tell us which chat protocol you prefer (AIM, Jabber, Yahoo, etc.) and we'll pick four winners at random. Sorry, we've got to limit the winners to the US, as promo codes don't work anywhere else. Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. (Sorry, we know our international readers want to participate, but promo codes don't transfer outside the US.) To enter leave a comment telling us your preferred IM protocol (AIM, Jabber, etc.). The comment must be left before April 3, 11:59PM Eastern Time. You may enter only once. Four winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: Promo code for free copy of Agile Messenger for iPhone (US$9.99). Click Here for complete Official Rules.
