AIM and Beejive Instant Messaging iPhone Apps Updated with Push Notifications

[MacRumors]

Two major instant messaging clients (AIM and Beejive) for the iPhone and iPod Touch were updated tonight with support for Push notifications. Instant messaging was always cited as one of the major reasons the iPhone and iPod Touch needed some form of background processing. Prior to iPhone 3.0, if you were to switch out of these applications, there was no easy way for the applications to notify you of an incoming message.

AIM (Free) - AIM is the official AIM client from AOL. The new version allows you to stay logged in for up to 24 hours and receive notifications through Apple's Push Notification system.

BeejiveIM ($9.99) - Despite it's higher price, it has been a very popular instant messaging client with support for multiple protocols (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, Facebook, ICQ, Jaber, MySpace). The latest update adds push notification support and other enhancements.

Push notifications require the 3.0 firmware that was released last week. Apple announced today that it has been downloaded over 6 million times since it's release.

Article Link: AIM and Beejive Instant Messaging iPhone Apps Updated with Push Notifications

[ugotpwned5]

yay finally! i have been waiting for this day!

[mlkeller]

Interesting...iTunes shows free version of AIM as still the pre-Push version, but App Store on my iPhone downloaded the 3.01 update with Push. Guess they're still syncing things up?

[DMann]

Let the new apps roll!!!!

[Greg McBride]

Just updated. Anxious to try it out!

[jstigall]

IM+ does not have push, read the app description!

[jtalbert]

Just installed both, tried them out and both work very well.

The one thing I will recommend before you use them...

After installing..

Reboot... Reboot... Reboot..

Did I say reboot your phone? Rebooting will solve problems I had and others I have heard were having.

Well worth the wait!

Oh and btw, Yahoo will not connect. If you cannot connect with Yahoo, there appears to be a problem with Beejive connecting.. Gives a tried all ports error message..

[modernangel76]

The push notifications come through to your phone even if you are currently using AIM on your desktop machine. I have had the app for only an hour and have sadly had to disable the notifications since it was driving me nuts.

[Vandam500]

BeejiveIM's push is amazing I have tried 3G,Edge and Wifi and during all 3 as soon as I hit enter on the keyboard (sending a message to myself via a different account) the message arrives on the iPhone. I am so in love with my iPhone now

[yg17]

I can't even log into anything on Beejive right now, I think their server is overloaded

[pianoplayer1]

Originally Posted by jstigall

IM+ does not have push, read the app description!

Yes, IM+ does not have push notifications - it's just 3.0 tested, and the push version is still in approval

[myrdog]

Beejive isn't showing as updated for me yet

[noTe on iPhone]

Which app allows you to stay logged in until you manually sign off?

On AIM, you have to login everyday since it only allows you to stay signed in for 24 hours.

[larrymarshall2]

Any way to get notifications not through SMS?

[Matthew Yohe]

Originally Posted by modernangel76

The push notifications come through to your phone even if you are currently using AIM on your desktop machine. I have had the app for only an hour and have sadly had to disable the notifications since it was driving me nuts.

Yeah, I'm curious if BeeJive does this, if not I will buy it. I'd rather not wait for AIM to get on this.

Originally Posted by noTe on iPhone

Which app allows you to stay logged in until you manually sign off?

On AIM, you have to login everyday since it only allows you to stay signed in for 24 hours.

Well, the idea is that you will get a message at least once a day, if not, you really don't need push anyway...

[macfan881]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

Beejive has been great lovin it

[jtalbert]

Originally Posted by yg17

I can't even log into anything on Beejive right now, I think their server is overloaded

reboot your iPhone, it should work.

[jtalbert]

Originally Posted by larrymarshall2

Any way to get notifications not through SMS?

Its not via SMS as far as I know. If you dont want to see the actual messages, go into Prefs, notifications beejive and turn off alerts. This will have it play the IM sound and also give you a number badge on our icon letting you know how many new IMS you received. You can even turn off the sound if you want.

[carve]

WOW really loving beejive. Now I just need tweetie and facebook to get push.

[noTe on iPhone]

Originally Posted by Matthew Yohe

Well, the idea is that you will get a message at least once a day, if not, you really don't need push anyway...

I thought the whole point of push was not having to run the programs all the time (and in the background)?

[Fiko]

I finally decided to buy Beejive today Today it was still in 2.1 or so version. I bought it like 2 hours later and it was already 3.0 and I was shocked Then App Store in my iPhone 3G was telling me that there is an update for my 3.0 to 2.1 lol

But now I'm all good and Beejive Push works perfect!

[BruiserBear]

I just read the description for beejive, and it says you need push email to make the push features of that app work? What is the deal with that?

I'm just looking for an IM app that I can use instead of text messaging. That means I want the messages to notify me without being in the app.

[Valmor]

Originally Posted by modernangel76

The push notifications come through to your phone even if you are currently using AIM on your desktop machine. I have had the app for only an hour and have sadly had to disable the notifications since it was driving me nuts.

Does BeeJive do this too?

[dagamer34]

Originally Posted by carve

WOW really loving beejive. Now I just need tweetie and facebook to get push.

Tweetie won't get push just because the developer wants it. It's a Twitter thing (twitter runs their servers, Tweetie just grabs content). And because Twitter's servers would be the ones pushing an update to your phone, it'd have to know a) what phone to push it to (handled by the app) but more importantly b) what app to push it to as there could be several Twitter apps installed on your phone.


Then you have to think of the logistics of who's going to pay for the added server load. You'd have to admit that the developers of Twitter apps are basically making their money off the services of Twitter (which is pretty much unheard of in most circles), and now they'd be asking more from them. Twitter is stuck between a rock and a hard place in figuring out how to support the MILLIONS of users needed to make sure the service ran smoothly.

Basically what it all boils down to is that right now, Twitter makes no money, and until it does, push notifications will suck due to unreliability and inadequate server power.

[bmb012]

Originally Posted by Matthew Yohe

Yeah, I'm curious if BeeJive does this, if not I will buy it. I'd rather not wait for AIM to get on this.



Well, the idea is that you will get a message at least once a day, if not, you really don't need push anyway...

Set Beejive to away, IMs will be sent to the client that's available. If you step away, sign out on the computer, or let it autoaway, you'll start getting IMs on the phone. If you've away from the computer and want IMs, just set Beejive to available.

That's what I've always done, at least.