AIM for iPhone by next week?

[newyorksole]

AIM is being developed for the iPhone by AOL and will be a 3rd party app. Apple said that only native 1st party apps will be able to run in the background.

I wish Apple would release iChat but I don't expect them to put it on the iPhone anytime soon. I also don't see a 2nd camera being put on the iPhone. Hopefully I'm wrong though, but I just don't think Apple release iChat

 

[ayeying]

Can I ask what may seem like a dumb question?

Why do we need AIM if we can use SMS? I mean, other than physically giving our mobile number out, I don't really see what the big difference is.

I do text, a lot, but even with "a lot" of texting, I only text with 3-5 people regularly (when I say regularly, i mean like.. 200 text a day give or take.) AIM, is a lot better to communicate in my case when 95% of my friends are on aim regularly and pretty easy to reach.

I remember when I had my Samsung Blast, my aim used text msging and in a month, i was close to 50,000 texts just for aim alone. lol. Ya, thats how much aim i do on the go. And right now, its a complete hassle cause the iPhone cant do much of anything else when the browser is connected to aim (well, besides listening to music thats if music is already playing and mobileplayer doesn't crash on you)

 

[JBaker122586]

AIM is being developed for the iPhone by AOL and will be a 3rd party app. Apple said that only native 1st party apps will be able to run in the background.

Apple is a massive corporation.

AOL/TW is a massive corporation.

There will be exceptions made, it's almost guaranteed. Apple wouldn't cripple something as popular as AIM unless they offered an alternative (iChat, whatever).

 

[lindsayanng]

when i got my iphone, i was pretty clueless about its actual capabilities. I just got one because it was free.

anyways, i had played with a friend of my sisters, anyways, i saw him using his iphone and texting on it, but because of the SMS interface, i thought it was ichat. So anyways, when i got mine and realized there was no ichat on the phone, i called ATT to see what the deal was. I wanted to know HOW i could get it on the phone. She laughed and said I could not download the actual program onto the phone, but i could use some web apps. She then went on to assure me that by "summer" there will definitely be an IM application. So i said "Like July Summer?" and she said maybe, but she said it will definitely be out in the summer.

My guess about the apps that run in the background is that apple is not allowing any outside developers to create a program like that because they want complete control of those types of apps. It makes sense to me, i mean they already have SOME applications that came with the iphone that (in a way) run in the background. I'm no programmer, but isnt the calander always updating and checking for an alert?? I mean, the iphone has LOTS of things happening when you arent doing anything so it's not the iphone CANT have an app like that, but that apple wants to tightly control apps like that.

again, its just my assumption and guess as a novice techie, but it only makes sense to me. It makes more sense than just saying "well, apple will not allow any developers to create apps that run in the background, so there will be no ichat (or IM app) that runs that way.

 

[DiamondMac]

I am still shocked that it took this long to get a form of AIM, iChat, GTalk, whatever on this phone

I thought from Day 1 that iChat would be on the iPhone

It is a big deal to me as I communicated daily on my old phone with AIM/GTalk with clients and co-workers and I can't wait to start it up again

 

[Van Wildonher]

50,000 texts a month huh.

 

[ayeying]

iPod runs in background, so does the phone. I don't think any other apps actually run in background. Then again, besides the phone, there are no other programs that forces EDGE or Wifi to be connected even when you switch away from that app.

Im waiting extremely patiently for an iChat program to come out for this phone. Right now, even an acknowledgment stating that it'll be released very soon would be good. So far, all we have are rumors of a possibility.

Right now, I have until June 20th before I make a final decision. All I want is Apple/AOL actually state there will be an iChat app extremely soon, then i'll keep the phone.

 

[JBaker122586]

iPod runs in background, so does the phone. I don't think any other apps actually run in background. Then again, besides the phone, there are no other programs that forces EDGE or Wifi to be connected even when you switch away from that app.

SMS runs in the background. As does Mail. So does Clock.

I wouldn't worry so much. I'm sure that when they unveil some apps at WWDC, AIM and/or iChat will be there.