Very rarely do I every promote an app, either for the iPhone, my Mac or my PC. However, I think this app deserves a little shameless plug.
I purchased BeeJive after looking through the app store for a multi-protocol instant messaging application. I had tried many (Palringo, Fring, Nimbuzz, AOL AIM, IM+,Skype, and probably some I’ve forgotten about) but this was the first that made me forget that I was on a phone. It has many of the same features that I love about Adium on the Mac. Namely meta-contacts. Since many of my friends have multiple accounts with various services this lets me combine them into one “contact” so they aren’t all over my list. Another feature I love is how nice the program looks. Compared to most of the others you can tell they took time to develop the look. Most of the other apps just use the standard text in, text out look. It also has various “extras” that make life better:
- Things like integrated browser and sending of email so you don’t have to leave the app
- Sending of pictures directly without storing it on a public server
- Server based login so gaps in coverage don’t tick off everyone who has you on their buddy list because you keep going on/off line (I’m looking at you Palm Pre
- All your IM accounts in one app
In all fairness their 3.0.0 release was not very good. While it brought push notifications (finally!!! Booo Apple) it created some problems for people on MS Exchange like myself. It also had an issue with memory management and would crash frequently. I have had a chance to work with their fix release and it is much more stable. It hasn’t crashed yet outside of something left over from the 3.0.0 release.
With push notifications and BeeJive I no longer feel like I’m missing something when I walk away from my computer. If you’re interested here is the iTunes link