[UPDATE]
Landscape chatting works great. You can hide the keyboard to easily view and scroll through chat. Also you can email your chat log to yourself or the other person, or anyone else. Works very fast. You can set audible queue for incoming just like the desktop client’s and if you lock your phone during a chat, when you unlock it, it goes right back to your chat.
The texting fee AT&T charges may be a reason to consider some sort of chat application for your iPhone, but the trick is which one? AOL has an app but its not as solid as you might think, which is odd since they were instrumental in chats acceptance.
If your like me, you have 1 or 2 accounts and between your friends and co-workers you need something that works with all of them. I did some digging, Review reading, and checking of privacy policies and came up with an option that I bought, and use.
"Beejive is a privately held company specializing in the development and marketing of software for mobile devices. Founded in 2006, Beejive (pronounced \bē-hīv\) strives to become the world’s premier developer of fast, reliable, and easy-to-use mobile software.
BeejiveIM, the initial offering from Beejive’s product portfolio, is a multi-protocol instant messaging client that connects the mobile user to the major instant messaging networks."
^ The above is from the company’s "About" page and I thought better to quote then paraphrase. Many of these FREE apps pass all the data through their servers, and so you are sending them, often without any encryption access to all your accounts, and with something like Gmail (GTalk) that is a LOT of info. beejive’s privacy policy states:
"
1. Information We Collect
We do not collect or store any of your instant message ("IM") account information, such as your user name and password, messages, or contact lists, except that we temporarily store your instant messages solely in order to complete the instant message communication (for example, in response to a dropped call); however after the communication is complete the instant message is deleted from the Beejive system. We also collect the following information: "
So with that info digested I decided to buy the app. It was $15.99, which might be a lot to some, but for me, if the app works, is fast, easy to use, then its worth it, so I don’t have to spend more time fooking with it, or sourcing another app. If you value your time, and need a chat app, then I recommend it.
They make it for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and the iPhone, so they have a lot of experience in the relm of mobile chat. Also the BlackBerry is $19.95 for what its worth.
Screen shots of app in use from the beejive site.


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