pzarquon

Has anyone tried any of the IM apps on the Treo 650? Are there any particularly good attempts? And do any take better advantage of the larger screen real estate?

I found VeriChat and WebMessenger Palm, which is two more than I found the last time I looked a few months ago (most older apps were from 1999, several MSN/AOL/Y! protocol changes since rendering them useless).

Verichat has the awards and most recent update (Nov. 25), but the interface just looks goofy to me. Webmessenger is cleaner, but older.

Any IM fanatics out there?

utey

Do a search for verichat in these forums and you will have all the opinions you need.

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utey

chrisutley

verichat is working quite well on the 650 for me, and the interface has been a non-issue for my use

pzarquon

Ah, of course. Rule number one of message boards. An almost identical query right here.

Okay. From what I've picked up from a few dozen threads, the original IM leader, Chatter, gave up the IM game, and is now just an e-mail client. The leading multi-carrier IM applications for the PalmOS seem to be Causerie Messenger (discussed at length here) and VeriChat.

Thing is, both use their own servers to act as intermediaries (to save your bandwidth and battery?), and require subscriptions. Causerie costs $34.99 a year for the "Premier" and $24.99 a year for "Standard" (with discounts if you buy several years at once). Verichat costs $24.95 for the first year, and $19.95 each additional year.

Causerie's big feature are "IM bots." Lots of other folks have crowed about Verichat's file transfer capabilities and SMS integration (though I think Causerie does the SMS tunnel too?).

Other players include Mundu Interoperable Messenger ($14.95 one time), a relative newcomer, Agile Messenger (though its 3.5 Palm release is still in beta), and Chatopus ($14.95), which requires some familiarity with Jabber servers and Jabber "transports" to connect to Yahoo!, AIM, etc.

So... with that IM 101 overview... Any new thoughts on any of these, specific to the release of the T650 and related bugs/improvements?

Gaurav

pzarquon, great response!!! Very nice synopsis of the overall IM choices for the Treo!

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mathewlu

Does anybody know of a Palm IM program that supports group chats (i.e. chat rooms), especially in AIM (but MSN or Yahoo, etc. would be fine too)?

Thanks,
--Mathew

pzarquon

I'd also be curious to know if any of these solutions allow you to set, from the Treo, a specific "away" message or an automatic reply to the first incoming IM per "buddy" per session. For example, sending a note that says, "Thanks for your message! I'm logged in via my PDA, and will reply if I'm available." You know, so you don't annoy people who catch you while you're driving or otherwise occupied.

Then again, I'm not a hardcore IMer, so I have no idea if ignored messages are just par for the course.

• Causerie: "'Auto Reply Messages' are your custom-defined messages, which are sent when you are not available for chatting. These messages are application level messages. Once an Auto Reply Message is set, any buddy who sends a message to you will receive the pre-defined message by default."
• Verichat: No mention.
• Mundu: No mention.
• Agile: No mention (no documentation?).
• Chatopus: No mention.

ranjeetsodhi

can you receieve phone calls while you are signed into the IM Clients??? I certainly don't want to miss any calls simply so I can be signed into MSN or Yahoo while on the move.

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tubby_bartles

Tried them all. Causerie made a big splash here, but it appears only a few people use it. I have to admit, I don't understand the IM Bot thing -- AOL's had them for years, and they are a server side thing, not a client side thing. VeriChat accesses AOL Yellow Pages and WSJ just fine.

VeriChat has all the basics plus some, I've been very impressed. Check out Handango -- I don't think there's really any question about which has got the actual users (12K downloads vs. 74, and neither one redirects download traffic to Handango).

Gaurav

Well, the answer to that question is yes...and no... at least on Verichat that is...

When you are actually using the verichat app and are actively chatting, the Treo accesses the data services and thus you cannot receive calls via on an active data connection (this is the case for CDMA Treos primarily). However, you can setup Verichat to keep you logged on via the pdaapps servers in the background when you are not physically using verichat. If you can setup Verichat to alert you via sms when ever you have a new IM. Thus, this way you can stay logged on and still receive IM and NOT miss any incoming calls. However, if you want to respond to IM, then you will have to goto verichat and open an active data connection...

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BillPetro

I've used both Verichat and Chatter (now ChatterMail). Chatter involves a bit more setup, though is a one-time only price. Verichat is a yearly subscription. But other than setting up your userids and passwords for the various IM accounts you have, there is no difficult setup involved with Verichat.

And now, I'm making decisions on how "big" the application is. Never had to do that on the Treo 600.

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samyang

I use Verichat and it's great. One thing I don't like is the fact that Verichat doesn't seem to support mobile icons for AIM (these are the icons that let other users know that you're on a mobile phone and, therefore, may not be able to immediately respond to IMs).

I hope that add this feature soon.

Aside from that, it's great.

dragonslayer76

Well, I used VeriChat on my 600 for quite a while, and it worked wonderfully. It was easy to undestand and setup, but when I put it on my 650, it was in BLACK AND WHITE! I don't know what the issue is there...anybody know?

And the Causerie Messenger seems to be a great little program, but when I install it to my 650 and go to launceh it, it crashes.. Any ideas?

Nut all in all, if I can get my VeriChat back in color and I am not able to use Causerie Messenger, I will still be happy with VeriChat. It is a good little program that has always left me online and got me my messages.

pzarquon

Does Causerie? As I noted above, Causerie also notes "autoresponders" as a feature, so I could also set that to inform buddies of my mobile status. Considering Verichat's much wider userbase, it seems odd there's not something like this in there already.

Do most folks use the SMS, non-live tunnel with Verichat? Seems a bit wasteful to ever use a constant data connection for something like IM. Again, though, it'd be nice to tell someone who sends you an IM, "I'm on the road and may not be able to reply," without launching Verichat.

causerie

tubby_bartles: Causerie messenger has been out for less than 2 months. We added 2000 users till now. IMHO, we will deserve lot more downloads once our next version is out.

pzarquon: Great post. Causerie does not show mobile status.

dragonslayer76: We are working on Treo650. Treo650 battery drain will be zero even when you are using data connection. Good bye to polling.

mathewlu: We are adding new features on a regular basis. You will see lot more options in coming release of Causerie. It would be worth the wait.

ratsey

Dragon - there's a new version of VeriChat for the 650 that's in colour. I sent them an email telling them I'd changed client and needed a reminder of my licensing details: they replied also letting me know of the new version.

VeriChat works fine for me - the GUI might be slicker (even on the new one) but it's not bad, and absolutely usable.

I have it set to 'Data' link rather than 'SMS' which means I don't receive phone calls when online but it doesn't eat into my montly SMS allocation.

kirkeric

Is Verichat one of those that require the other to have the same thing or does it integrate into other chat programs?

Thanks,
Eric

ratsey

It provides a single UI to AIM, Yahoo, ICQ and MSN.

pzarquon

Can any Verichat users tell me what you can do in standby mode, wherein IMs are sent to your phone as an SMS? Can you reply back quickly inside the same SMS window, or do you need to launch Verichat and move to a full data session to respond?

dean2526

If an AOL program version comes out for the 650 (I have seen issues with current AOL software and the 650 on these threads) does it have AIM built into that?