{"id":2428,"date":"2008-09-30T20:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-30T19:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.razorianfly.com\/?p=2428"},"modified":"2008-11-10T01:08:37","modified_gmt":"2008-11-10T00:08:37","slug":"beejive-im-for-iphone-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/30\/beejive-im-for-iphone-hits\/","title":{"rendered":"Beejive IM for iPhone Hits [Update]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, the popular multi-network IM service, Beejive, released it&#8217;s native iPhone application. I picked it up after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2008\/the-shambles-that-is-mobile-chat-3\/\">sheer disaster<\/a> I encountered with Mobile Chat 3. Probably the first impression most people will get from it, is that it&#8217;s quite a bit more expensive than it&#8217;s competition at \u00c2\u00a39.49, and you&#8217;d be right. Having looked beyond the price though, this application is very well designed and could actually become one of, if not the IM client for iPhone &#8230; <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>[Update 10.10.08 @ 00.05am]<\/strong> &#8211; Beejive have just released version 1.1.0. The new update brings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hyperlink support in chats, including links for web pages, YouTube,<br \/>\nemail addresses, and telephone numbers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Emoticon support (finally)<\/li>\n<li>Customizable colors for chat bubbles (configurable under settings)<\/li>\n<li> Various bug fixes \/ small UI enhancements<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Original Article:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Supporting all the usual IM networks including; Windows Live Messenger\/ MSN, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, Myspace IM and Yahoo Messenger, and with messages using your data plan and not your actual monthly text allowance, Beejive IM for iPhone [<a href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/viewSoftware?id=291720439&amp;mt=8\">App Store<\/a>] is slowly becoming a favorite among many.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Setting up your account<\/strong><br \/>\nLike any other instant messaging client, setting up your IM account for Beejive is just a username and password away. Touching the &#8216;Accounts&#8217; tab on the bottom navigation panel displays the current accounts setup as well as the ability to add others.<\/p>\n<p>Once you have your account setup, you can then view your buddies by tapping &#8216;Buddy List&#8217;. If you have your contacts grouped, as expected, Beejive also separates your buddies into these groups. To start a conversation with one of your buddies, just tap them, you&#8217;ll then be thrown into the &#8216;Chat Window&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Chat Window<\/strong><br \/>\nThe chat window consists of one initial space, as the other two are hidden. You&#8217;ll first be met with the space where your sent messages will display. You can view your entire conversation, or previous conversations you have had with your chosen contact with a simple flick of the finger. Now for the elegant part. Tapping on this space will immediately bring up the built in iPhone keyboard API, allowing you to type &#8211; but where is the typing space, the input box? &#8211; There isn&#8217;t one <em>(per say)<\/em>. Start typing and you&#8217;ll see what I mean. Keeping in line with iPhone OS, a very elegantly designed (shaded) bubble graphic will appear on screen. This is where your typed message(s) will appear. Keep on typing, and it&#8217;ll stay in view, stop and it&#8217;ll minimize into thin air, until you start typing again. Don&#8217;t want the keyboard anymore? &#8211; Chat space becoming too cramped? &#8211; Tap the convo again to get rid of the keyboard. Just a few examples of how the Beejive&#8217;s user interface differs from that of it&#8217;s competition.<\/p>\n<p>It also offers a few other things too. One being, the ability to view on-demand information about your contact&#8217;s IM profile. See that display photo in the top right?<\/p>\n<p>Talking to a contact and forgot their e-mail address associated with their IM account? &#8211; It&#8217;s now at your fingertips, as well as other information like their current status, their assigned contact group and you even have options to chat, delete or block a contact with a touch. It&#8217;s very nicely done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Settings<\/strong><br \/>\nThe devs at Beejive didn&#8217;t exactly skimp on the settings behind it either. There a literally tonnes of them, some are currently available and other are not.<\/p>\n<p>Some highlights are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Push Notifications<\/strong><br \/>\nPossibly the best feature in settings is the ability to receive an instant alert by either e-mail or text. Setup is simple and requires little effort. Simply enter a valid email address or phone number, and away you go. Standard rates apply.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>24 Hour Server Connection<\/strong><br \/>\nDon&#8217;t have Beejive open on your iPhone? Concerned of missing that important reply to a business proposition? &#8211; Beejive keeps a persistent connection to your IM account for 24 hours. So basically, as long as you login at least once a day, you&#8217;ll permanently be connected to Beejive and your contacts conversations. It&#8217;s a very good alternative until Apple eventually release their Push Notification Service.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>General Notifications and Sounds<\/strong><br \/>\nBeejive can also notify you while your in the application. Choose from sounds being played when sending an IM, receiving one, ringer when inactive and vibrate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sort your buddies<\/strong><br \/>\nAlso available is the option to sort your contacts by Status or display name.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Chat Transitions<\/strong><br \/>\nSeemingly not available yet (or not functioning), you can also choose how to graphically transition from chat to chat. The two currently options are &#8216;Flip&#8217; or &#8216;Slide&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Auto Away<\/strong><br \/>\nSet a message that your contacts will receive in the event of you being set to &#8216;Away&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Chat Backgrounds<\/strong><br \/>\nThis setting offers the ability to change the actual background of your active chats. Choose from White, Grey, and iPhone (being the lightly Grey striped background found in various parts of iPhone OS).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Supports Landscape!<\/strong><br \/>\nAdding to the short list of applications supporting it, Beejive messenger for iPhone supports full landscape orientation throughout the entire user interface.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Down Falls<\/strong><br \/>\nAmongst it&#8217;s best features, there are however downsides. Currently Beejive does not support the sending or receiving of photos. You don&#8217;t even get a link, they just don&#8217;t appear. Also absent is the ability to serve up a working clickable hyperlink. Hyperlinks sent to you by your contacts just show as text, which is non tappable.<\/p>\n<p>According to Beejive:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Both of these are to be addressed in the next update to Beejive IM for iPhone&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Price<\/strong><br \/>\nAt \u00c2\u00a39.49 ($15.99) Beejive for iPhone is the highest priced IM application on the store to date. Beejive seem to have realised that they&#8217;re onto a winner with this one, and it shows. I think it is slightly steep, but this is no &#8216;beta&#8217; application (which is more than I can say for MC3). This is a fully polished, well structured, gorgeously designed, application. You don&#8217;t feel like your being used as a beta tester, and honestly after using Beejive for 24 hours, you&#8217;ll realise that your paying \u00c2\u00a320+ a month for a text package from o2, and Beejive just got you unlimited IM ability, for a year (at least), for just under a tenner!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Overall<\/strong><br \/>\nSince yesterday, and with the recently imposed rule that reviews can now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2008\/apple-disables-ability-to-review-on-itunes-without-initial-purchase\/\">only be published<\/a> by people who actually own the item, Beejive currently has 17 reviews. Meaning, Beejive just made a whopping \u00c2\u00a3170+ in 24 hours. Due to it&#8217;s lacking features, we have had to mark it down somewhat, but with it&#8217;s inviting user interface, sleek look and extra settings, this may just become <em>the<\/em> IM client for iPhone. After using the client for almost 20 hours straight now, not once has it crashed. The 24 hour login works, with Beejive intelligently only sending you one e-mail alert per missed message, and IMing your buddies cannot get any easier. It&#8217;s slick, functional and a social tool I recommend.<\/p>\n<p>Provisional Rating: <strong>9.4\/10 (Polished, Flawless Design, Highly Recommended)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>App Store: <a href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/viewSoftware?id=291720439&amp;mt=8\">Beejive IM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Got this application? Why not tell us about your personal experience in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, the popular multi-network IM service, Beejive, released it&#8217;s native iPhone application. I picked it up after the sheer disaster I encountered with Mobile Chat 3. Probably the first impression most people will get from it, is that it&#8217;s quite a bit more expensive than it&#8217;s competition at \u00c2\u00a39.49, and you&#8217;d be right. Having looked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16,17],"tags":[846,849,847,3501,346,848],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-app-store","category-iphone","category-ipod","tag-beejiive","tag-beejive","tag-instant-messenging","tag-iphone","tag-ipod-touch","tag-push-notifications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3970,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions\/3970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}