[appVIEW] AIM

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AIM, the leading “instant messenger” client and service, has now came to the iPhone. With easy navigability, favorites, the ability to save chats, sounds, and REAL buddy icons, it has become my favorite client for AIM on the iPhone. There are 4 tabs, Buddy List, Favorites, My Info, and IM’s.

More after the jump.

Buddy List
The buddy list is well organized, listing our buddies alphabetically. It displays their buddy icon, their screen name in bold, and their status message, as well as if they are Available, Away, Idle, or on their Mobile. When we click them, it pops up with a message area, where we can converse. The buddy list also displays groups, including Online, Recent Buddies, Offline, and any other group we may make.

Conversation Area
The chat area is very well done. It is VERY simple, with no text formatting available. It displays our messages in one color, and our friends’ in a different; just like how the iPhone does text messaging. It also shows time stamps, which may come in handy, since the AIM iPhone Application stores all of your past conversations, unless you decide to clear them. I don’t like, however, that links are unclickable in this space; but that is a downfall of a lot of iPhone communication applications.

Favorites
In this tab, we have the simple option to have all of our “favorite friends” available in one glance, to see if they are online. I do not use this tab, and don’t see much functionality for my small buddy list, but if you had an extraordinarily large buddy list, this would be a life saver.

My Info
In here, we can edit our status (Choose between Available, Away, or Invisible), and our Status Message. Very simple and easy to use.

IM’s
In this tab, we can see all previously opened conversations, organized by name. You can delete them, or start a new one with someone on OR off your buddy list. It also invites you to send a message to a cell phone, which, when tested, sends a text message with your screen name to the mobile phone with your message.

Positives
This application does what it needs to do and no more. Everything works perfectly. It is a very satisfying expierence.

Negatives
You cannot click links inside of messages, and when you get out of the app, you sign off in a way. There are no notifications like Apple promised, though it is a problem with Apple, not AOL. A little lacking in features.

Summary
This app does what is needs to do, and I respect it for that, though I wish for some innovation for some new features. I love the simplicity, though. I am waiting for the push notifications to come, for this to be a perfect application for using the AIM service.

9/10

Price: Free
Category: Social Networking