• BeejiveIM
BeejiveIM has hit the App Store with their entry in the battle for iPhone IM superiority. Let’s get right to it.
Aside from XMPP, Beejive offers AIM, ICQ, MSN/Windows Live, MySpace IM, and Yahoo! Messenger support. Their XMPP support comes in two flavors: “Jabber”, or pre-configured Google Talk. Strangely, configuring a GTalk account as a “Jabber” account doesn’t work, despite being the same thing. This is a curiosity, but not a limiting factor by any means.
Adding my primary XMPP account was relatively straightforward, with my ridiculously long password as the lone speed bump. During configuration, I was struck by the ability to set up a resource, set my client priority, choose a host and port, and determine whether I wanted TLS or legacy SSL (no option for plaintext authentication). This is already feeling like a real XMPP client.
The login process was similarly confident, offering me the choice between available, away, busy, and invisible presence settings, and the option to set a custom status message for each.
Rich presence? In my iPhone client? It’s more likely than you think.
Their “Buddy List” sorts contacts by group (”list by account” is also an option), displaying your contact’s nickname, JID, status, full presence, their avatar, and an icon indicating which IM service they’re using. If I had to ask for something here, it would be merged contacts, but the interface is solid enough to make this less of an issue.
Chatting is a thing of beauty. Outgoing messages, as they are typed, are shown in a semi-transparent bubble, giving a clear visual cue when the user is typing, and making the absolute best possible use of screen real estate. This is by far my favorite feature of Beejive, and one I expect other clients to adopt in the future. Once the “send” button is hit, messages are shown in the iChat bubble style of the SMS app.
My other favorite feature, and the one most likely to be shown off, is landscape mode. Yes, you can rotate your iPhone to get a larger keyboard. Of course, this comes at the cost of message visibility, but the rotation-switch happens quickly and seamlessly.
Now for the obvious question: “does it proxy?” Yes. But here’s the good news, from Beejive’s privacy policy:
We do not collect or store any of your instant message (”IM”) account information, such as your user name and password, messages, or contact lists, except that we temporarily store your instant messages solely in order to complete the instant message communication (for example, in response to a dropped call); however after the communication is complete the instant message is deleted from the Beejive system.
Completely fair, and Beejive has a solid reputation. And compared to MobileChat, their servers are stable and fast. As a positive side-effect, Beejive servers can notify the client that a message was not delivered, resulting in a cute interface cue to let the user choose whether to attempt re-sending. There is also an in-app option to set up email alerts if messages come in while you’re doing something else.
Now for the bad news. At $15.99, it’s difficult to tell if the price is driven by arrogance or ignorance. This is a fantastic offering, to be sure, but the price will keep many potential users away. I’ll be shocked if the price is still above $9.99 a month from now.
Beejive has thought of everything, including a built-in help system. This may be the best 1.0 release I’ve ever seen, and the future looks very promising. From the iTunes description (emphasis mine):
Coming soon, group chats, emoticons, and full hyperlink support!
BeejiveIM is beautifully designed, expertly implemented, and offers a new level of reliability. Could it be that we finally have a viable XMPP client for the iPhone? Yes.
Update: pictures.
