Strycher – Gen X in 2K

After a long search for a decent instant messaging application for Android, I may finally be settling in on one in particular.  I have tried Palringo, Meebo IM, and IM+ Lite.  I dabbled a little bit with the pre-installed Instant Messaging app on my Samsung Moment from Sprint. I admit, I did not really pursue separate apps for the instant messaging services, because I like having a consistent interface and one app instead of several.  In this blog, I will provide my guidance on the three I was happiest with.

Palringo

Palringo was one of the first apps that I tried for instant messaging.  The app is not too bad, decent features, easy to configure.  The downside is that I had to sign up for a Palringo user account, which gives me Palringo instant messaging, but is a feature I find unnecessary and just one more ID to remember.  I also noticed that Palringo was susceptible to sleep mode issues, and I never found a suitable setting to keep the app connected to my instant messaging services by disabling sleep mode.  Sure, maybe there's a way to hijack a setting to make it work, but no matter what I did, within a few minutes, Palringo signed me out and I was not available to my friends.  Big down side in my opinion.  Away went Palringo, I needed something better.

Meebo IM

Meebo IM came next.  Meebo IM has a nice interface, again, easy to configure.  I liked how it was easy to either sign into all accounts, one account, or sign in automatically.  The interface is clean and intuitive, easy to use, and did not require me to sign up for a Meebo ID to use the app.

The downside to Meebo IM is that it intermittently would disconnect from the servers, and tonight, Meebo disconnected and could not log back into Yahoo.  It kept giving me an error that my account was locked (really?  Interesting), and that I should try logging in via the web.  No, that didn't work.  Sorry Meebo developers, maybe you need to read up on the Yahoo API.  I also did not like that Meebo really badly jumbled all my instant messaging contacts together such that I had trouble finding people.  So, if you have a lot of contacts, Meebo can be a little cumbersome finding them.  The features were also a little weak, not giving me as many options or capabilities as I have become used to with a full-featured PC app such as Trillian.  Back to the shelf, let's see what else is out there.

IM+ Lite

Admittedly, I saw someone else's review on this app a few days ago, discussing only the paid version, and mentioning that it had a price tag of $19.95.  Tonight I went looking and not only was the price only $4.95 for the paid version, there is an IM+ Lite version that is free.  Imagine my surprise when it just works — a bit of a different experience than Palringo or Meebo.  Not only does it just work, but it is easy to find all the settings, and it doesn't horribly jumble my contacts.  Big pluses so far there.  I also have enjoyed that it does have a sleep-blocking setting that actually works, was easy to find, and is defaulted to blocking sleep mode.  It even warned me that that was the default setting and explained to me how to change it if I wanted.  Another nice feature that some folks may find handy is the ability to create custom status messages that IM+ saves for re-use at a later time as well.

The color scheme is dark, but quite pleasant.  It does not have bubble-style messages like Handscent SMS does, but that's okay, because it does put color-coded rounded rectangles around the different participants' messages.  Handy — I can see which messages are mine, and which belong to my friend.  You also have the choice of having IM+ appear in the notifications bar or not — a feature that was not controllable in either Palringo or Meebo.

Right on the main screen, near the top, are two handy buttons: Accounts and Active Chats.  What a handy way to find both sections of activities.  On the Accounts screen, I can sign in and out of accounts or add, remove, and edit accounts.  On the Active Chats screen, I can see all of my active conversations.  From what I can tell, IM+ also does a nice job of saving conversation histories (of course, this could be a security/privacy risk).

The big downside I see so far may not be an IM+ issue but rather an OS/phone issue.  When I started doing some heavy processing while downloading updates to a number of my apps, IM+ had trouble holding its connection and ultimately logged me out of AOL and Yahoo.  Well, that is only going to be an intermittent problem for me, so no big deal. I also noticed that, on occasion, it does not have a snappy response to the Back button.  Another item I can live with, but it could become annoying.  I also assume that the paid IM+ gets rid of the advertising, so that's my own issue for now.

Conclusion

My recommendation of the hour is IM+ Lite or paid.  Seriously, the app is well above the quality of Palringo or Meebo, both of which are nice apps, but not nearly as robust.  Check it out, I think you'll like it.