Meebo for iPhone Stands Out from The Messaging Bunch
By: Hillel Fuld
It would be interesting to count how many IM apps there are in the App Store. Off hand, I can personally think of close to ten. Meebo, a company that was first on the iPhone scene with their iPhone optimized Web client back in the days before the iPhone 3G, is the most recent member of the group. They announced their native iPhone app recently, and judging by just how good it is, I understand why it took them this long to release it.
So how is it different than all the other IM apps in the App Store? Well for starters, it is free, which is great, but even better when you realize it is no worse of an app then IM apps that go for $10 in the App Store. Besides the price, Meebo for iPhone outdoes the competition by far when it comes to the number of IM networks supported. There are of course the regulars such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, MySpace, ICQ, Jabber and Facebook, and right under that list in the app, there is a little button called More Networks. When you press that, you are greeted with an extremely long list of less known networks such as Batanga and Footytube (really? that’s what it’s called?), as well as more than one hundred other networks. I am pretty sure there is no other IM app with so many supported networks.
Other great features in the iPhone Meebo app are chat history, push notifications, and full synchronization between phone and Web. Meebo for iPhone has an extremely simplistic interface, which you might take as being too minimalistic, but really proves the point that sometimes less is more. When you first log in, you can enter your Meebo details in the same way you do it on the Web and the app will import your settings from your Web account, which saves you the time of doing it on the phone.
This app, as opposed to many others we have seen, only has three tabs on the bottom of the screen; Buddies, Chats, and Accounts. The one that is obviously missing is Settings and to access the Meebo settings, you will need to close the app and go to the iPhone’s main settings, a definite annoyance. Even in the Settings of the app, there are many different options missing such as the possibility to not view offline buddies and many more. I guess you get what you pay for.
Having said that, no app is perfect and taking into account the price of Meebo and its features, it is pretty darn close. The Meebo settings, which are found outside of the app include the following options:
- How the buddy list is sorted with the three options being name, status, or network
- Whether the app allows you to type in a landscape keyboard, which is something missing from other apps in this category
- Auto correct and auto capitalization
- How the timestamp appears on the IM
- Whether the iPhone makes a sound when a new IM arrives
As for the interface of the app, the Buddies tab will give you a list of your contacts across the various networks, the Chats tab will display recent conversations, and the Accounts tab will allow you to define your networks and current status. If you close the app without signing out, push notifications are automatically enabled and will pop up within seconds of a new IM.
In conclusion, I am sure Meebo for iPhone is going to be a huge success mainly because it is easy to use and free. To say it has everything the more expensive apps have would be a lie, but to say that those extras are worth $10 of your hard earned money, that would not be 100% true either. All in all, the developers did a great job with this app and besides a few small issues like the lack of in app settings, I would say this is as good as it gets.
Our Rating: 4/5
Developer: Meebo
