Kik Messenger - BBM for iPhone

[wildta]

Privacy Flaw, Sends SPAM, Shares Info w/o Authorization

Kik has a serious privacy flaw. Kik ties in a person's username with their email address. Kik then sorts through the person's addressbook to find potential friends. This is considered a major privacy issue because a user may not want someone that is in their addressbook to know they have a Kik account--but they will because if they have your email address then they also have your Kik username without authorization or adding that person to your friends list. I understand the usefulness of finding other Kik users quite easily but there should be an ability to turn off the feature that allows Kik to search for other Kik users in your addressbook and SPAMMING them with a "you may know" message.

There's a reason why Blackberry Messenger allows its users to accept/reject another user before they are able to message them, and that it doesn't just sift through the user's address book looking for other potential BBM users.

 

[KSKENE247]

Hey i remember getting this app when it first came out and NOBODY used it or anything... Yesterday i got a message saying that my cousin was using it and by the end of the day everyone of facebook and everything was talking about it.. It just blew up outta nowhere. Pretty sweet

 

[xavierpunkreno]

Hey i remember getting this app when it first came out and NOBODY used it or anything... Yesterday i got a message saying that my cousin was using it and by the end of the day everyone of facebook and everything was talking about it.. It just blew up outta nowhere. Pretty sweet

Seriously. This app just exploded. That's a good thing though. I finally have an app that's pretty much BBM.

 

[p8ntballguy]

This is a fantastic app, but one thing (I think that kik is probably working on anyway) is desktop integration.

I have always wished that I could send and recieve texts from my computer(or at least be notified of new texts), there are ways to do it, but they are pretty clunky and not many of my friends are using them, so they are kinda useless. If they could create a desktop app, integrated with growl, that would automatically sync over the cloud to my phone, I would never go back to normal texting. It would be borderline revolutionary.

 

[Meltdownblitz]

Quick question, How does it work when it picks out random people and says "you might know so and so, to start chatting, type a message"?

Not quite sure how that works.. Just started using this app, thanks.

 

[Neverbepeace]

Quick question, How does it work when it picks out random people and says "you might know so and so, to start chatting, type a message"?

Not quite sure how that works.. Just started using this app, thanks.

I guess it goes through your address book and finds your contacts who have kik as well. Personally, I tried it......it needs major improvements. I still think Whatsapp is the best since its instant with photo and vid sharing. Sit back and see what becomes of kik.......

 

[Meltdownblitz]

I guess it goes through your address book and finds your contacts who have kik as well. Personally, I tried it......it needs major improvements. I still think Whatsapp is the best since its instant with photo and vid sharing. Sit back and see what becomes of kik.......

I don't know, it's still confusing to me why they have apps like this.. I thought everyone has unlimited text messaging these days.
And actually I don't think it goes through my
Contacts and finds them because I haven't heard of any of the names it's suggesting to me.

 

[rk1991]

hi tera I have some feedback for the new version of kik I just downloaded today (Oct 20/2010)

- there are contact pics, but no way of changing your contact pic

- with iphones there is a downloadable tweak that allows you to quick reply to your sms messages
~ so instead of having to unlock the phone and waiting for the convo to reload in the kik app, you can instantly reply via the lock screen
~ not sure if this is compatible with kik, but that would be a great feature

either than that kik has been working flawlessly for me compared to other messenger programs..alot of other messenger program's servers are constantly down and therefore you are unable to send and receive messages

thanks

Also you should try and make it take less time to reload when you go into the app. It takes forever.

 

[Neverbepeace]

Also you should try and make it take less time to reload when you go into the app. It takes forever.

This


Could it be set up like whatsapp? That app is instant getting messages when opening the app.

 

[yourwiseguy]

Kik rocks!

So far I haven't had any bugs or issues with it. The second I opened Kik I got like 20 messages from all of my friends who had downloaded it too. It's really cool but I'm having trouble convincing some people to make the switch. If I can't get enough of my friends to migrate to Kik then I might have to stick with regular SMS =(

 

[jxpx13]

Push Notification

The only problem that I have found with the Kik app is with the push notification. I do not consistently receive notification messages when a new kik message comes in while my iphone 4 is locked. I only get notifications when I am still browsing my phone. Is this a problem that will be fixed?

 

[jmsteve3]

The only problem that I have found with the Kik app is with the push notification. I do not consistently receive notification messages when a new kik message comes in while my iphone 4 is locked. I only get notifications when I am still browsing my phone. Is this a problem that will be fixed?

I was having the same issue. The app is pointless if I have to open it up just to see messages. The trick is that by default, Kik has notifications turned off. Go into settings, then notifications and find kik and turn 'em on! Works great after that.

 

[rupert pupkin]

I have 2 phones one for work and one for personal is it possible to use the same usename for both phones?

 

[baseline01]

Kik has a serious privacy flaw. Kik ties in a person's username with their email address. Kik then sorts through the person's addressbook to find potential friends. This is considered a major privacy issue because a user may not want someone that is in their addressbook to know they have a Kik account--but they will because if they have your email address then they also have your Kik username without authorization or adding that person to your friends list. I understand the usefulness of finding other Kik users quite easily but there should be an ability to turn off the feature that allows Kik to search for other Kik users in your addressbook and SPAMMING them with a "you may know" message.

There's a reason why Blackberry Messenger allows its users to accept/reject another user before they are able to message them, and that it doesn't just sift through the user's address book looking for other potential BBM users.

Agreed! Promptly deleted this app from my phone and did a reset of the account. Was getting unknown people contacts when doing a search...

 

[dhalben]

Push notifications

I accidentally refused push notifications when kik was set up. Is there a way that I can revert this to accept push notifications? Thanks,
Byron
iphone 3g
Update: Fix-- go to settings--> notifications----> KIK

 

[bbplayer5]

Love this app! Also love that I get people added automatically.

 

[0970373]

I used for 1 day and deleted my account. The auto-add is a dealbreaker for me. You don't get the option to add who you want or reject an add. very bad. I'll stick w/ Ping. It's also multi-platform and free as well. Ping also allows group chat & to send pics. Pretty sweet.

 

[Doom878]

I read on engadget that Blackberry temporarily blocked this app because of privacy concerns

 

[samcraig]

I sent an email to the developers of KIK, Ping and Whats App to start a dialogue about (them working together) to create a universal app (think what Beejive is to IM) a week ago and nothing but silence. Which I find intriguing. Either they have no interest in working together - or they take a long time to respond to emails...

Here's the gist of the email:

All three of your apps (I have them on the iPhone) are great and have unique differentiators. But there's a problem which no doubt you recognize. Simple fact is - users are fragmented. Much like users are fragmented on Yahoo Messenger, Google Chat, AIM, MSN, etc. The only difference is that for those messaging services, there are apps like BeeJive which unite them all into one interface.

The end user doesn't want to have to remember or deal with which friend is on which app.

Which brings me to the question. Why hasn't someone (either 3rd party or one of you guys) created a universal app. One that can utilize each of your services but "agnostic" to the user.

No doubt you see each other as competitors. And no doubt no one wants to give up potential revenue. But I strongly believe that if there was a universal app - whoever developed it (and I am NOT a developer) could easily charge more than any ONE of your apps and come up with a shared revenue model to make everyone happy.

People shell out 9.99 for beejive so they don't have to worry about what networks their friends are on. I know from personal experience, I would pay a premium if I could have all three of your apps combined.

 

[coldpower27]

So how's this app doing now, I am trying it on my Android device now, and I like the look of Whatsapp better..

 

[jps1012]

So how's this app doing now, I am trying it on my Android device now, and I like the look of Whatsapp better..

Whatsapp has more features but it doesn't have the Read feature which i like.

 

[raceman1231]

Am I being blocked on Kik?

I can see the person's picture, but they arent sending me a message. I send a msg and it says "D". Does this sound like im blocked?