IM+ – iPhone App Review

IM+ ($9.99)

Version – 3.5

REVIEW – “The all in one messaging and notification app!”

Throughout the years instant messaging services have come and gone.  People use all kinds of services from MSN Messenger and Yahoo IM to Facebook and Myspace messaging.  Wouldn’t it be great to keep in touch with people across all of these different chat interfaces on your phone!  Well I’m happy to tell you that there is an “App for that,” and it’s called IM+ by SHAPE Services!

There have been many apps that have attempted to be all-in-one messaging apps, but very few of them have managed to be easy to use and reliable.  Fortunately you’ll be glad to know that IM+ is one of those few apps that is really worth the time and money to download!  In addition to the basic IM functions that you get with most IM apps this one also offers some advanced features not found elsewhere such as email push notifications and speech recognition!

When you open up IM+ you start out at the main “Contacts” page.  The first thing that you’ll need to do is go and set up all your messaging services that you’d like to use.  To do this you just touch the “More” tab in the bottom right corner and then touch “Accounts.”  From here you can add as many different accounts as you like.  I was impressed with the amount of different types of accounts that were supported.  Even smaller services and some that you wouldn’t necessarily think of for an IM app are supported.

Once you get all of your accounts set up I would first head to the “Settings” tab which you can access also from the “More” screen.   At the bottom of this screen are the “Push settings.”  From here you can set whether you will stay logged in when IM+ is closed, how long you will stay logged in, and what kind of notifications will be sent if you IM+ isn’t open and you receive a message.  Another cool feature available here is the ability to send an “autoreply” to people that message you while you are logged on with IM+ with it not actually open.

The main messaging interface will feel familiar if you are using an iPhone and you use the “Messages” app regularly.  There are four main pages you can access from the menu at the bottom of the screen: “Contacts,” “Inbox,” “Favorites,” and “Status.”  The “Contacts” screen is a list of your contacts from all your different accounts that you have set up.  The “Inbox” screen works almost exactly like the “Messages” app.  You will see a list of all your conversation history and you can delete any or all of it at any time if you wish.

The other two screens allow you to quickly view a list of your “Favorite” contacts.  You can add people to this list easily by touching the little “i” button to the right of their name to view their information and then “editing” their contact and then adding them as a favorite.  The other main window for this app, the “Status” window, allows you to easily change your “Status” on all of your IM clients.  You can either use one of the default messages, or you can create your own and manage them by touching the “Edit” button in the upper left corner.

Another feature that could be quite useful if you are willing to pay for is IM+’s speech recognition feature.  This will allow you to literally speak messages into IM+ and have them typed out for you.  Unfortunately while this feature is really cool, it also comes with a “cool” monthly fee of $0.99 if you plan on taking advantage of it.  That being said though I’m sure it is a lot of work for them to offer this feature on a continuous basis and so $0.99 is not really a big deal if you know that you will use it a lot!

I would say that this apps greatest strength is also probably its greatest weakness, and that strength is that this app is constantly evolving.  There are several features that have been added recently which increase the value of this app.  The problem is that some of them seem to have problems and not to have been quite ready for mass adoption.  An example of this is the email “push” notifications.  Not only did I have some trouble getting them to work at all, but because of the way they work you will not receive email notifications when the app is open even if you have it set up properly!

All things aside though, the core of this app really does work quite well.  And while I would say that there are a few issues that need to be worked out, I really was definitely impressed with the IM push notifications and basic functions.  While I would say that Beejive probably has a slight edge right now as just  “messaging” client, I would also say that with all of the new features that have been added to IM+ that Beejive is going to be left in the dust in the near future unless its developers really get on the ball.

I would definitely recommend IM+ for anyone that is constantly on the go because of the advanced features you can use it for such as speech recognition and email notifications.  While Beejive has been the elite app in this genre for a while, I think that IM+ has finally dethroned done it and really become the app to beat with its latest feature updates, and best of all there is a free ad-supported “Lite” app so that you can “try before you buy!”  So if you’ve been looking for an elite messaging app for your iPhone or iPod touch what are you waiting for?  Head to the App Store and download IM+ today!

- David H.

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Developer – SHAPE Services

URL: http://www.shapeservices.com/en/products/details.php?product=im&platform=iphone

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© 2009, Davidh. All rights reserved.