Let's talk about Instant Messaging Programs - Motorola Q Forum

ZATZAi · 02-26-2007, 05:00 PM

Ok, had my Sprint Q for a while now, been trying out several different IM programs, and having some trouble finding one I really like. So I thought I would relay my experience with the programs I have tried, link to them, for the sake of others, and hope some of you who have tried other IM apps can let me know about your program of choice.

...

Agile - $11.95 Three months / $44.95 Life
Probably one of the most stylized IM programs, and free for Windows Mobile until recently. Sadly it suffered from a number of bugs that you can find out about if you search the forums or download the trial, as the bugs persist in the premium version. Some people like the style, personally I don't care for it, but I it's also not stable enough for me to warrent a purchase.

Site

...

IM+ - #29.95
This is one of the two IM programs everyone seems to use, especially now that Agile is not longer free. It's got a prettty standard interfact if your familiar with AIM, thankfully the status bar is grey not sky blue like in the screenshots. You can rename your contacts, but sadly not organize them into folders (Though it will recognize what you already have setup on your account) nor can you create/rename folders. The program works well enough, but I had one glaring problem with IM, and sadly one that did not go away, that being (Atleast with GoogleTalk) some contacts would fail to show they were online. If I used another App, or my desktop App they showed as on, I could even have a conversation with them in IM+ but they still showed as offline, which was a problem for me since GoogleTalk is one of the IMs I need to work.

Site

...

iMov - $19.95
Unfortinately I have not found a Trial version of this product, so I have not tried it.

Site

...

Octro - Free
This is a currently free IM tool, and I rather like it's style, in fact I liked it alot, but it had a couple problems. It supports groups, and you can rename the contacts. You HAVE to use Google Talk with it (Though it does support VOIP via Google), and all other IMs are passthroughs, be they Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc, and because of that you get several new contacts in your GoogleTalk buddy list such as "SoAndSo@yahoo.com.octro.com" which I find annoying personally. The biggest problem with Octro though, is that it has a tendency to turn off (End it's process) when it has been idle for a while.

Site

...

WebMessenger - $5.95 One Month / $29.95 Year
This is what I am using now, I'd never heard of it before, I found it on the Sprint Moto Q Store site, and so far I like it. I supports all the standard IM protocalls, GoogleTalk and Yahoo being the important ones for me, but it also supports vanilla Jabber, and... Skype (Yes Skype the VOIP protocal), I have not tested the VOIP though. It allows you to rename and organize your contacts which is important for me, and you can re-organize/rename the folders too.

Site

...

There are other features I could mention for these Apps, I'm definately going to be keeping an eye on Octro, but right now WebMessenger seems to fit the bill for me (Still in trial though). But if any of you have any suggestions for other programs I should try, please let me know, I'm looking for programs that support Google Talk and Yahoo at minimum, though AIM and MSN are nice to have as well, being able to organize contacts into folders, and rename contacts is important too...

So if you know something like that give a shout. And if you're just in the market for an IM program yourself, give these programs a look, and I hope it's a helped you atleast, some.

;)

inf3st · 02-27-2007, 09:38 AM

With as much as this is asked about. I think this should be stickied or added to the User guide. Great Post.

trent_duke · 02-27-2007, 02:55 PM

What is buggy about Agile?

Trent

deejaygyro · 02-27-2007, 09:00 PM

Thanks for the imformative post!

I understand that these developers need to make money, so it's only natural that they would want to charge some money for their IM apps.

I think it's ridiculous however, that AOL doesn't offer a free AIM app for mobile phones.

Suture · 02-28-2007, 09:31 AM

I'll chime in with my experiences.

Agile Messenger
I tried Agile actually twice. The first time it locked up my phone so many times it was completely unusable. I removed it, eventually wound up doing a hard reset on my phone for wireless sync capability to be enabled, and figured I'd try it again. It was the same thing. It would lock up to where I couldn't even hit my Home button to "tab out" of Agile. No way were they getting any money from me, so I tried IM+.

IM+
Purchased this, but it has one glaring ommission. There is no desktop notification if you've received a message. I don't know how in the world they missed that. Also, I am still not getting any notifications (sound or vibrate) when an IM is received (and I have checked the settings). It works other than that. I wish the interface featured a tabbed view instead of having to close out windows and reopen windows, but nonetheless, it does its job. I hope they eventually implement a desktop/dashboard notification. I get disconnected a little too often, even when I am at full signal strength.

Overall, I am not impressed with the IM programs available on the Q. My old Nokia had a much better first party multi-platform version, and even the Sidekicks I think do a better job.

ZATZAi · 02-28-2007, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trent_duke

What is buggy about Agile?

Trent

For me the big loser point on Agile, and I just re-downloaded the trial to confirm its still there, is it's inability to deal with large IMs (Paragraph size) especially in multiples. I do like the tabbed windows Agile has though...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suture

I'll chime in with my experiences.

Agile Messenger
I tried Agile actually twice. The first time it locked up my phone so many times it was completely unusable. I removed it, eventually wound up doing a hard reset on my phone for wireless sync capability to be enabled, and figured I'd try it again. It was the same thing. It would lock up to where I couldn't even hit my Home button to "tab out" of Agile. No way were they getting any money from me, so I tried IM+.

IM+
Purchased this, but it has one glaring ommission. There is no desktop notification if you've received a message. I don't know how in the world they missed that. Also, I am still not getting any notifications (sound or vibrate) when an IM is received (and I have checked the settings). It works other than that. I wish the interface featured a tabbed view instead of having to close out windows and reopen windows, but nonetheless, it does its job. I hope they eventually implement a desktop/dashboard notification. I get disconnected a little too often, even when I am at full signal strength.

Overall, I am not impressed with the IM programs available on the Q. My old Nokia had a much better first party multi-platform version, and even the Sidekicks I think do a better job.

For IM+ I find you need to "close" the active chat window and go back to the buddy list, then you will get your prompt. Web Messenger seems to be the same way. Octro talk had a homescreen plugin and it would indeed notify on each and every IM if you wanted.

IM+ implementation for dealing with multiple IM windows takes some getting used to, you get a second screen that lists your current IMs, one at a time, and shows the most recent comuniques, and you can cycle through them and then choose to respond. Octro has a tabbed window like Agile, but it only shows the most recent window sadly, so no more than one... Web Messenger has your buddy list, and your chat windows, it can give you the sound notification (Though that is a little flaky it seems like IM+ is) and it can give you a full screen popup too (Which can get annoying fast), when you are at the buddly list you will see a "mail" icon blinking next to people yo uhave IMs from, or you can pull up the menu and jump to the "last unread message".

None of them are perfect, Web Messenger seems to be the best right now, but Octro has real potential, it just has a few hangups/lackings I can't get past yet, even if it is free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deejaygyro

Thanks for the imformative post!

I understand that these developers need to make money, so it's only natural that they would want to charge some money for their IM apps.

I think it's ridiculous however, that AOL doesn't offer a free AIM app for mobile phones.

Oh they have something though I don't know about smartphone support, I think Yahoo does as well, and we know MSN and Skype do (Don't know about Jabber/Google). I just haven't bothered to list the "single network" IM clients, as I would always want to run atleast two if not four protocals.

JohnHammer · 02-28-2007, 04:31 PM

I have been using OctroTalk for about a week...and today it won't fire up: says "Alert: Your license has expired"

I thought it was a freeware / shareware program. There is nothing on their site about purchasing it.

WHEN it was working, I really liked it. Any ideas?

enigmatl · 02-28-2007, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnHammer

I have been using OctroTalk for about a week...and today it won't fire up: says "Alert: Your license has expired"

I thought it was a freeware / shareware program. There is nothing on their site about purchasing it.

WHEN it was working, I really liked it. Any ideas?

Try redownloading. Perhaps a new version came out? I dled it tonight and I love it too and am hoping mine doesn't die. I'll hard reset if that happens. Octrotalk is good stuff.

steveb352000 · 03-03-2007, 07:32 PM

I have also just started using Octro. It seems very cool.. Lets keep updated to discuss problems..

enigmatl · 03-04-2007, 06:31 AM

Just for you guys' info, I got an alert yesterday when I started Octrotalk that there's a new version, 1.07 replaced by 1.08 and it's an over the air update so no need to redownload.