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Looking for new IM client for a Jailbroken iPhone 3G

J

jlamb0

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 16, 2008
87
0
I've been using a jailbroken 3G running 3.1.3 for a few months now. I love winterboard and backgrounder (proswitcher), but I'm having trouble finding an IM client that I can leave in the background.

I've tried Nimbuzz and Meebo. Meebo gets really buggy in the background, and Nimbuzz suffers from memory leaks that require periodic restarts to fix (I have to restart Nimbuzz about every 15-30 mins).

I hate push notifications. I just want to send the app to the background, hear a beep or chime, and go back in to answer the message.

Can anybody point me in the right direction?

Thanks!
 
I've heard great things about IM+ and Beejive, but at $9.99, I want to make sure I get one that will play nice in the background.

Have you tried using them in this way?
 
Jlamb0 I'm in the same boat. I just want to have Google Talk working like it did on my Blackberry, meaning it was always on, never disconnected and didn't drain my battery at all.

With Blackra1in and Spirit, using just SBSettings and Backgrounder, IM+, IM+Lite, BeeJive all disconnect throughout the day and don't reconnect, plus they drain the battery something awful.

Yes, I've definitely identified my battery drain as coming from the IM applications as when I uninstall them, my battery lasts all day.

I just want a light Google Talk client that stays connected and doesn't drain my battery.
 
dcguy12 said:
Jlamb0 I'm in the same boat. I just want to have Google Talk working like it did on my Blackberry, meaning it was always on, never disconnected and didn't drain my battery at all.

With Blackra1in and Spirit, using just SBSettings and Backgrounder, IM+, IM+Lite, BeeJive all disconnect throughout the day and don't reconnect, plus they drain the battery something awful.
Click to expand...

Battery drain hasn't really been an issue for me. I have a charger in the car, and I'm almost never without my laptop, so if my battery only lasts 3-4 hours at a time it hasn't bothered me.

The main problem I've been having has been a slow drain on the available memory until all apps freeze and springboard crashes. Using SBSettings, I put the free memory stat in the menubar, and when I first start Nimbuzz it will leave me with 30-40MB free. After a few minutes, it will slowly creep down until I only have about 10MB left. I can use the Free Up Memory command to recover memory when this happens, but it rebounds less each time. At around the time I can only "Free Up" to 12MB or so, any other app that tries to run alongside Nimbuzz runs the risk of crashing everything. And once I'm down to 5MB, Nimbuzz itself freezes and crashes.

If I have the foresight to close Nimbuzz before it gets to this point I can do a quick springboard restart to refresh the system and start the cycle again.

I think the problem is that with the advent of push notifications all the current iPhone IM clients in the app store just aren't designed to be run for hours. Does anybody know of an app in another repository somewhere, like the old Agile Messenger app, that would be designed for longer use without push notifications? Would it even be compatible with OS 3.x?
 
mustnotsleep said:
why is aim bad for backgrounding?
Click to expand...

I haven't tried AIM, but I primarily use MSN and Google chat services, which the AIM app doesn't support. So even if it worked fine in the background, it wouldn't be of much use to me.
 
jlamb0 said:
I haven't tried AIM, but I primarily use MSN and Google chat services, which the AIM app doesn't support. So even if it worked fine in the background, it wouldn't be of much use to me.
Click to expand...

meebo, apple app store, free. Sorry I just saw u tried it in orig post. oops :(
 
You're going to run into problems with any IM app backgrounded on a 3G just due to the amount of RAM on the device. When I had a 3G I was never able to keep an IM client backgrounded for more than 10 or so hours without crashing/quitting, even if it was the only app backgrounded.

What's wrong with push notifications? They're flawless and instant with Beejive.
 
undergroundHACK said:
meebo, apple app store, free.
Click to expand...

Please read the first post before replying.

I have tried Meebo, and I have found that it is buggy when placed in the background, even more so than Nimbuzz which I am trying to replace. When in the background, Meebo will randomly decide it isn't running anymore and try to send me push notifications instead which confuses the order of messages received. In addition, even with Push Notifications globally turned off, Meebo seems to disconnect when left in the background, and when I bring it back to the foreground I have to wait for it to reconnect before I can use it.

I have found Meebo to be utterly useless as a solution for background IM.
 
fishkorp said:
You're going to run into problems with any IM app backgrounded on a 3G just due to the amount of RAM on the device. When I had a 3G I was never able to keep an IM client backgrounded for more than 10 or so hours without crashing/quitting, even if it was the only app backgrounded.

What's wrong with push notifications? They're flawless and instant with Beejive.
Click to expand...

Push notifications are fantastic, saves battery, doesnt tax additional resources on phone.

I'm currently using ebuddy pro which can stay online for up to 7 days! without leaving ebuddy running. Notifications are pretty much instant just as if ebuddy was running in the background. I guess the only downside is that you have to wait for the app to reopen before being able to reply but thats only like a 5 second wait?
 
fishkorp said:
You're going to run into problems with any IM app backgrounded on a 3G just due to the amount of RAM on the device. When I had a 3G I was never able to keep an IM client backgrounded for more than 10 or so hours without crashing/quitting, even if it was the only app backgrounded.

What's wrong with push notifications? They're flawless and instant with Beejive.
Click to expand...

I understand that I'm limited by the amount of RAM in my 3G, which is why I'm careful with what I background and what apps I run in combination. The menubar free memory counter really helps in this regard, and I've generally been fine with the limitations I'm discovering. For example, it is difficult to run much of anything alongside Safari for more than ten minutes or so.

With that in mind, I find that even on a 3G, most of the apps suck up little more than 15 or 30 MB, and I can often run 3-4 applications simultaneously with no problems.

My dream is to be reachable by IM at any time, and to have the ability to quickly respond in a seamless manner. I was open to push notifications as a solution, but, with Nimbuzz and Meebo anyway, this has been a failure. Push notifications are not instant on the IM apps I've tried, nor are they consistent. I'll often get a notification only to find that there are five previous messages that I wasn't notified of.

You've had a better experience with push using Beejive, but I've already given up on them as a roundabout and inefficient solution, and I'm not ready to shell out $10 just to see if their implementation is better.

I'm intrigued by what you said about running backgrounded chat apps on your 3G. 10 hours of stable time, even 8 hours, would satisfy me completely! I don't mind closing and re-launching a backgrounded app once per day. It's my current situation of once every half-hour to an hour that I'm fed up with.

Which IM app were you able to get 10 hours of use out of?
 
you can always use text message updates right, that is instant


or i know beejive has an email solution, but im not sure if theres a good way to reply though
 
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