No More PalmOS Instant Messaging?

cloudscout asks: "Palm users are slowly being cut off from Instant Messaging networks. In July of 2002, changes to the Yahoo! Messenger network effectively disabled the service's PalmOS client and an updated version was never released. Now the same fate has befallen ICQ users. Changes to the ICQ network have disabled the PalmOS client. This happened in September and since then, ICQ has responded to all bug reports with an irrelevant form letter. This leaves Palm users with AIM whose official client is a couple of years old, buggy and costs $20. Is there a future for Instant Messaging on Palm? One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority."

Comments

AIM for Palm OS

[btornado]

AIM for Palm OS is still available for free on AOL's UK site. I downloaded it today and installed it. It works, but it did not load my buddy list.

You can use Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN & AOL chat

[$exyNerdie]

Well, from what I know, VeriChat(TM) Unified Instant Messaging (IM) application for SmartPhones and other connected Palm devices such as the Tungsten C works very well.

It's key features (copied and pasted from the website) are:

- Unified messaging support for Yahoo!, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger & MSN Instant Messenger
- Works with all PalmOS based SmartPhones (that have a data connection - circuit-switch data or high-speed data) including the Treo 180, Treo 270, Treo 300, Samsung I330, Kyocera 7135, Tungsten W, Samsung I500, VisorPhone, etc.
- Native support for the Palm Tungsten C and the Sony NX/NZ series with a WiFi card.
- Will also work with your Palm PDA if it has any type of Internet connection and a paging address. You can use a Wireless phone via IR (infra-red) or BlueTooth for the PDA's internet connectivity, i.e., a Tungsten-T or a Treo 90 coupled via blue-tooth with a Ericsson T68. You can also use your Palm coupled to a CDPD modem and your alphanumeric pager.
- Familiar Graphical icons for each protocol
Chat simultaneously with your buddies using one or any combination of IM protocols
- "Always On" on the messaging networks: Your buddies will see you as online even when you are not in the VeriChat(TM) application
- Specially customized for the Treo's Keyboard and Jog dial; you can avoid using the stylus altogether if you wish to
- Easy setup; the installation wizard will guide you through the configuration
- Many features especially for a mobile device: Buddy Pounce, Auto-reply messages, Custom Status messages and Pre-defined messages.

There is another application called Chatter that works on Palm OS 5 based Treo 600 called Chatter. It's website is here.

Re:Open Source Opportunity

[the_truk_stop]

why not have someone work on a ... version of Gaim

The Gaim developers have done a fantastic job of splitting the Gaim core from the user interface, which has already resulted in a PDA client for the QTopia environment called QPE-Gaim. But porting Gaim to PalmOS I assume is a much bigger task.

Re:Jabber

[Evilive]

Chatopus is a jabber client written specifically for PalmOS.

Tungsten T maintains the connection between apps

[Eustace Tilley]

The Tungsten T lets you set the idle timeout on a network connection to 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, or never. You decide the trade off between battery time and reconnection hassle. If you set it to "never," you can switch between WebPro, VersaMail, WordSmith, PhotoBase, and so forth without having to re-login. If you set it to "1 minute," you can still switch, but you mustn't dillydally. Perhaps the Tungsten C lacks that preference setting, or perhaps the original poster never noticed.

The advantages to using a Tungsten T + cellphone combination over a single device like a Tungsten C include:

• it works whereever your cellphone can find GPRS, not just in WiFi HotSpots
• your cellphone battery handles the radio between you and the station (distant), your PDA battery handles the radio between your PDA and your cellphone (close)