Overview

While there are several chat apps available on the iPhone these days (AIM, Facebook, Latest Chatty, Rooms, MobileChat, etc.) I am pretty sold on Palringo Instant Messenger. After using it for a few days, its ease of use, integration with other services and ability to send voice is really nice. I’m not a IM-er by nature, but this has made me rather chatty.

Functionality

PIM allows you to connect multiple IM services. Version 1.1 includes the following:

  • Windows Live
  • Yahoo!
  • AOL
  • Gadu-Gadu
  • ICQ
  • Jabber
  • Google Talk
  • iChat
It works much like any desktop app would by showing you your online and offline buddies. Clicking on the ID of a buddy brings you to the chat screen. I was immediately drawn to the amorphous little balloon icon when I entered the chat screen. It’s a push-to-talk button! Holy cow, I thought.

The pop-up button says “Push and hold to talk.” Once you do this, it sends your voice file to your buddy. They will see it as a “play” triangle icon. Testing it back and forth caused a lot of oooo-ing and aahh-ing. The audio quality is terrific.

Palringo also allow you to create and join chat groups which is a really nice feature.

Review

I’m impressed. Palringo does exactly what it sets out to do – provide you with a full-featured IM app for the iPhone. I had a few issues getting my buddies to be able to send me sound, though they were able to hear mine just fine. Still working on that.

The only thing I don’t like is that when you leave the app, you are essentially signing off of all networks. That’s kind of a bummer if you have to answer the phone or respond to a text. However, relaunching Palringo does save your last open chat sessions (and you can have multiple ones open simultaneously). Having Palringo open apparently disables your iPhone’s auto-off feature, because it stays open when you leave it alone.

Another tidbit, when I signed onto iChat on my desktop, I was given an alert that I was signed into AOL in two different locations.

Palringo also has a nice desktop app for your computer – Mac or PC.

Summary

Palringo has quickly become a welcome addition to my iPhone app arsenal. It’s great for a quick check-in with friends and very useful for on-the-road IMs for productivity purposes. Whether you’re mobile or in front of your computer, Palringo has an app for you.