QuickAdvice: Is Verbs Your Next IM Client On The iPhone?
Verbs ($2.99) by #include tech. is a simple and clean IM client for your your iPhone.
Currently, Verbs only supports GTalk, but will be adding AIM in a future update.
Verbs is quick and fast, and you get that feeling when you launch the app for the first time. Simply enter in your Google Talk information and you'll be logged in immediately, with a list of online contacts being the first thing you see.
The list is collapsable by tapping the bar, and has a star that will glow blue when there are contacts online. The Offline Contacts can also be collapsed to reduce unnecessary clutter.
The app allows you to send photos and videos using a CloudApp login, but I was being told that my photos weren't going through. The recipient didn't receive a photo or a link of any kind. It appeared as if it went through on my end but there is no confirmation, or any real sign that it does. The developers may want to work on that in future updates.
The app currently only has local notifications as well, since it also doesn't keep you logged in, with no plans apparently to do full on push notifications like BeeJive IM or other IM clients.
This wouldn't be a problem if the local notifications would notify you of new messages for up to 12 hours or so, but there's also another problem with that: the local notifications will only notify you for 10 minutes after you exit the app. This is hardly enough time to receive notifications of any kind.
What I found pretty good though was the method of switching between chats from multiple people. It uses a "card" view similar to that found in Mobile Safari and even webOS. But you have to actually swipe by touching the chat "cards," otherwise they won't move. It took me a few swipes before realizing that.
For now, I can't recommend Verbs. I think it would also be more useful when they finally get around to implementing AIM, but I can't see myself using this over BeeJive IM, even though this app looks great. It is currently lacking in functionality.
It definitely has potential, but right now I can't recommend it, especially at the price of $2.99. Maybe worth keeping on the "Watch" list though.
