Attention iPhone users: Push instant messaging is now available. This means you can now stay connected to your instant message service like AIM or Gmail chat on your phone even when it’s in sleep mode. With Push instant messaging, you can receive instant messages the same way you receive text messages.
BeeJive is one of the first Instant Message clients to take advantage of this instant message feature. It has been reported by users that push IM works quite nicely. On the iPhone 3GS, the instant messages appeared almost immediately on the screen, even when other applications were in use. The messages appear in a small box, giving the option to close the message for later, or view it in the BeeJive app.
It has been reported however that during testing there were a few occasions where the push IMing wasn’t working. However, this is likely a problem related to Apple’s push-notification server, so hopefully Apple will fix the bugs over time.
This early version appears to perform better on iPhone 3GS compared with the earlier iPone models. This might be because the 3GS is more efficient with radio and memory usage than the 3G and original.
Overall, after testing various isntant message apps that works with this feature like AIM, BeeJive is so far the favorite. Flipping the iPhone sideways displays the keyboard in landscape view for easier typing unlike the others. The application supports eight instant message services including AIM, Google Talk, Facebook IM and ICQ.
