The free, web-based chat application Meebo has rolled out an iPhone app which finally brings multi-protocol chat to the Apple device. We???ve looked at a few other iPhone chat clients in the past, but even the best of them, FlickIM, only supports the AIM network. Meebo offers connectivity with AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber and Google Talk networks.
Meebo???s iPhone app is well thought out and includes niceties like browser auto-detection. Just point your iPhone to Meebo.com and you???ll be automatically rerouted to the mobile, iPhone-optimized URL. As iPhone users know, there???s nothing more annoying than having to type in a long URL.
Once you log in (and you don???t need a Meebo account to use the site, just login as you normally would on whatever network you prefer), you???ll be dropped into your contacts list. Select a contact and start a chat just as you would in a normal IM app. Buddies you???re actively chatting with will appear at the top of the list so you get a quick preview from the buddy list.
Once you???re logged in and chatting, I recommend switching to the horizontal interface since it gives you the iPhone???s much easier to use horizontal keyboard. I found that the contacts list works best in vertical mode, though both parts of Meebo will work in either orientation.
The chat interface for Meebo is pretty minimalist and not nearly as nice looking at FlickIM???s slick UI, but it does the job. Meebo has kept the graphics to a minimum, which is nice for those times you???re stuck on the EDGE network.
The big catch – which is not Meebo???s fault, but the iPhone???s – is that if you get a call or a text message or otherwise close the browser, you???re automatically signed out of Meebo (or nearly anything else for that matter). This is, as I understand it, a security feature of the iPhone, and certainly there are times when it???s handy. For instance, when you???re done with a chat, just hit the home button and you???re logged out. But other times it???s a pain. Of course, half the time you're using the web and someone calls, the iPhone automatically sends the call to voicemail, so maybe it doesn't matter.
Would a native IM app for the iPhone be better? Naturally, but since Apple doesn???t show any signs of providing such functionality, for now Meebo is your best bet.
