I still remember back to the olden times, when Instant Messaging was the hot new app taking the world by storm. Back then, the big question was ICQ or Yahoo or AIM. Interoperability between Instant Message Apps was out of the question at the time, and was causing brutal legal wrangling by all the major players, trying to make sure that they kept the walls high between them. To listen to them you would have thought the world would end if an ICQ user had been able to chat with a Yahoo user. Mixing of that nature was what brought down the Roman Empire!

Needless to say such an attitude is a thing of the dim and distant past since IM software is now ubiquitous and the leading clients are able to log into ALL the major services and then some, mixing your various friends lists into a social soup. Now, the important thing isn’t the the network involved…but the interface. One of the best and most successful IM interfaces on the iPhone has been BeejiveIM, so it is little wonder that Beejive has been ported to the iPad, but how successfully? After all, plenty of great iPhone apps have discovered that excelling on the iPad takes more then just filling up the extra screen space. Has BeejiveIM lost a step in the expansion, or is it still the IM client to beat?

Like a lot of iPhone applications, the first thing that BeejiveIM did when it got to the iPad was spread itself out all over the screen…and it makes good use of all that beautiful space. In portrait mode you always have the chat window showing the active chat taking up two thirds of the screen on the left, and a list of current chats filling the remaining third on the left hand side. One of my favorite little touches in this app is that in the Current Chats list, the last unread message from all open chats appear along with their names, which makes it very easy to make sure you haven’t missed and brief but essential statement, like “The police are here” or “I’m pregnant”.

The keyboard slides in from the bottom when you tap the screen, or you can tap the screen again to slide it out of the way to read more of the active chat.

At the very top of the screen you have a control to drop down your aggregated Friends list showing your friends on all the services you are signed into as well as buttons to open your Account window and a small Options window. In the Options window, you can set the wallpaper for the active chat window which is a very nice touch. BeejiveIM comes with several nice neutral backgrounds preinstalled, or you can use any images in your Pictures library. Most of the heavy duty configuration options, such as controlling the appearance of the interface or how notifications work, etc appear in the iPad Settings, and can’t be accessed from within BeejiveIM.

The Accounts window allows you to set your availability, in what ever way the service you are logged into allows. Most services allow you to set yourself as available, busy, away or invisible, with either standard messages or the chance to write your own witty, profound away messages to amuse your friends.

The active chat itself is presented in the “comic book” style that is in vogue for IM programs currently, with profile pictures speaking in word balloons, forming a conversation flowing up the screen as the discussion progresses. This can take a little getting used to, but all in all once you get the hang of it this style makes it very easy to follow the conversation and keep track of who is speaking. At the top of the chat is the name of the person you are speaking with, and the service they are logged into along with access to their profile and several different controls to send them a picture, and email or a voice message.

In landscape mode things are arranged a little differently. You have roughly a quarter of the screen on the left always taken up by your Friends list (which is a drop down menu in portrait mode) and about a quarter on the right with your current chats. The active chat fills up the half of the screen remaining in the middle. This is definitely my favorite of the two modes, since it puts all the information right out there in front of you, so no one can accuse you of ignoring them (unless of course you ARE ignoring them, in which case you have no excuse so fess up). Also the keyboard is MUCH easier to type naturally with in landscape mode.

So chatting is clear and intuitive on BeejiveIM…bur who can you actually chat with? Well the number of different accounts you can log into with BeehiveIM is quite impressive. Using BeejiveIM you can work with AIM, MobileMe, Google, ICQ (are they still around?), Jabber, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo and Facebook…or any combination thereof. Between those various services you should be able to speak with anyone who has a computer or internet device of ANY kind, and likely some people who don’t.

IM programs have become like death, taxes and things which update your Facebook page…they seem to be unavoidable these days. However, they are also an essential tool for anyone who lives, works or plays on the internet. It is hard for me to even consider what life would be like without being able to check my gchat now and again. Therefore, such clients are naturals for internet devices like the iPad. As essential as an app like this is, it is still nice that BeejiveIM is so well designed and complete. It has all the features you would need in a complete Instant Messaging solution without going too far. Even the bells and whistles in this app are useful elements. On top of that the GUI is elegant, attractive and highly intuitive. You will have to look a long time to find a communications application as powerful as BeejiveIM that is easier to use.

I can definitely give BeejiveIM my wholehearted recommendation. I had never used this app before encountering it on the iPad, but it is now my IM client of choice both here and on my iPod Touch.

BeejiveIM is available in the for $9.99.

Posted by: pybadyfyto at 10:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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