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IM+ Lite iPad App
One thing that’s essential to a mobile, on-the-go device like the iPad is a good chat client to keep in touch with all your friends and co-workers. With IM+ Lite, those needs are satisfied through its feature-filled services.
The app has been designed specifically for the iPad. In landscape, buddy list and active chat screens are easily accessible. Subtle features like swiping left or right to change between active chats make managing multiple conversations easy. Sending pictures, sharing links, and updating locations are all supported and easily accessed through a button in the chat window. If chosen, closing the app will enable push support so that messages can still be received when using other apps. When testing, I noticed a few rare occurrences when messages had approximately a minute of delay before the push notification alert was received.
Users who enjoy customization will be happy with all of the available options. Audio notifications are fully customizable for each type of event, granting the freedom to use all the available Apple tones. The background used behind chat windows can be set to any picture available in your iPad’s albums. A nice touch is the opacity selector to ensure that messages can still be read even with the most colorful of backgrounds.
Aside from its plethora of chat features, IM+ Lite includes a robust in-app browser. The convenience of browsing the web and not having to close and re-open the app is extremely useful. I found this as the best feature of the app, as I use my twitter to mainly click on referred news articles. The speed of the browser is just as you’d expect when using Safari, not leaving out any experience of the full internet. This may be the defining reason why I will keep using IM+ Lite as my iPad chat client.
One non-intuitive function of the app is the method in which the keyboard is selected. Simply clicking on an active conversation does not enable the keyboard. Instead there is a small icon on the bottom. This icon sometimes disappears, causing the need to restart the app in order to return to typing in a chat. This behavior happened rarely but
was frustrating when it did occur.
Im+ supports all the major chat clients including AOL instant messenger, google chat, msn and yahoo. There is also the ability to log into Facebook and Twitter for all your social needs.
Great features for a ‘lite’ version of a product. Plenty of customization options.
