Review: IM+ for the iPod Touch / iPhone

IM+ for the iPod Touch / iPhone has to be one of the best IM clients yet for this device. I’ve personally tried others, but I do not find them near as perfect as IM+ is.

Here’s a in-depth review of IM+!

IM+ Version 3.1

Reviewed on a iPod Touch 1G

For IM+ being a full screen application, this helps add more space to the application, and overall, it just looks great full-screen!  I honestly love the fact that Twitter is embedded into IM+. If you’re a Twitterholic like myself, you’re going to love IM+. The grouping of your buddies makes it very easy to find the people you want to talk to. The only bad thing about this type of "flicking” system, is that if you have a lot of buddies, it’ll take a while to find them. It would be nice if SHAPE Services would make it possible to have the (A, B, C, D…) scroll-bar on the right-hand side of the screen. This would increase productivity for the people who have a lot of contacts.

I have to give a hand to SHAPE Services for adding in more user-customizable settings. What I mean by this is that in IM+, there’s a setting for you to set a background. This background, in fact, will show up in any chat window when you are talking to your buddies. And the best part is, you can even use your own photos you may have on your device! In addition to that, you are also able to customize the view of your contacts, if you want to connect on startup, block the users who aren’t on your contact list, customize the orientation of the screen, the sound (on and off), and also vibrate. A note to SHAPE Services, it would be nice for you to get rid of the vibrate option on any iPod Touch. I’m not sure if your able to detect the type of device with the SDK, but it would be a nice feature. Because obviously, vibrate doesn’t work for iPod Touch users.

This is for sure a different kind of feature in a IM application, but they have also included a web browser! For example, when you are talking to your friends, you will be able to go to the web browser easily, and look something up! And honestly, I think SHAPE Services should improve on this feature (like adding bookmarks).

Included in IM+ is a variety of IM-type services you are able to choose from. You’re able to have Skype, AOL (AIM), MSN, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, and MySpace. I absolutely love the fact that Twitter and Skype are in IM+; it is a very rare thing to see something like this. There’s full Twitter functionality, but as with Skype, all you can do is chat; you cannot call anyone. But that’s probably on Skype’s side. Skype hasn’t opened their doors to a lot of 3rd-party applications.

You are able to choose from several different type of statuses.

Online On iPhone with IM+ A am here (this uses your current location; with a really nice world icon there!) Away Invisible Offline

I love the fact that they included all these statues. But it would be nice to specify your own status.

The inbox is a feature where it puts all your conversations to (and un-answered ones). I love this feature when you’re talking to a lot of people on your device. But in the same time, it’s a bit of a pain to have. What I mean by this is if you are talking to a lot of people, this list can build up; you have to manually delete everyone. It would be nice if there was a mass delete button so it would be possible to clear the whole list.

In your contact list, there is also a search function to find the people you may be looking! This helps a lot, but it would still be nice to have a A…B…C.. scroll bar.

Support for push-notifications. These will notify you when you when IM+ is not active. Handy when your on the road with you’re iPhone.

Here’s a final summery of the pros and cons of IM+.

Pros:

• IM+ is a full screen application (most of the time; will explain in cons)
• Twitter and Skype are built in
• Has a lot of ways to find your contacts fast
• Choose your own chat background
• Lots of settings
• Your current location in the status
• A web browser built in
• Lots of IM clients built in
• A inbox to show your messages
• A search functionality
• Functionality to send your current location, pictures, and voice messages to your contacts
• Emoticons
• Nice graphic design
• Can easily navigate chats with a flick of a finger (when your in the chat window)
• Push Notifications (only compatible with iPhone 3.0 software and above)
• You can bookmark your favorite contacts

Cons:

• No ability for a A…B…C…D… scroll bar to search through your contacts
• IM+ isn’t always running in full-screen. You can see the gray bar at the top sometimes.
• You cannot bookmark any websites with the web browser
• There’s no ability to add a custom status
• No mass delete on the inbox
• When “connecting…” appears, it does cut of your group name a bit (not that important, but a bug)
• No way to switch between full-screen and normal view
• It’s a bit on the expensive side ($9.99) when there’s not a sale happening
• Everytime you close the application, it will display this message to your friends if the message you back, "Now IM+ is closed so I won't see your message. I will reply as soon as I open it again."

I have to give another hand over to SHAPE Services, they really did a great job. They deserve a 5/5 for IM+!