Archive for: google talk
- December 19, 2010 7:20 pm
Late last week, we reviewed a unique newcomer to the iOS Google Talk scene. “Verbs”, as it is called, doesn’t offer all that much in terms of functionality. After all, it is a simple Google Talk app. On top of that, the one staple feature that any time-based communication app should feature as default — Push Notifications — is not currently supported. What Verbs does do well, however, is design. Verbs looks amazing. And tonight, version 1.0.1 makes the harsh reality of no Push Notification support a bit easier to swallow.
The latest update features your usual assortment of bug fixes and performance tweaks. Though the biggest thing to talk about are the “local notifications”. Basically, the app will alert you of new messages while it is in the background for up to ~10 minutes. After that point, you are disconnected from Google Talk and the messages stop flowing. For those impromptu conversations started by other people, it still doesn’t help. But once the conversation gets going, you can now freely move about iOS and not have to worry about missing the latest comments.
Verbs 1.0.1 can be found in the App Store as a free update to current users and $2.99 for newcomers.
- December 17, 2010 9:41 am
Two years after Apple unveiled the App Store and over 150,000+ apps later, it may seem rather redundant and useless to release another chat client in to the midst. But there’s one thing above Verbs that’s very different — it looks amazing! From a design perspective, it puts all other chat apps to shame. Though, that awesome design doesn’t come without a few caveats. Hop inside for the review…
When it comes to multi-chat apps on iOS, “a dime’s a dozen” certainly rings true. It’s not very hard to tie together a bunch of IM protocols and display them in one window. And after testing out pretty much every multi-chat app on the App Store, I’ve come to the conclusion that the hard part to building a multi-chat app isn’t the functionality — It’s the design.
To some people, design is nothing more than an afterthought. For if an app or service gets the job done functionality-wise, why care about anything else. And for many of the multi-chat apps on iOS, that is the exact stance that was taken. There are some truly hideous looking apps out there. But every once in a while, a gem shines though. The most recent of which is a Twitter app which goes by the name of “Weet”. But the focus tonight is on multi-chat — not Twitter. With that said, a new upcoming Google Talk app based out of India has caught my eye…
Facebook and Twitter are considered the top dogs in the social media realm. It is with these services the vast majority of earthlings around the world communicate and share their ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. Gmail operates much the same way — though it is far from the traditional social networking. I mean, you trade the exact information via Gmail but in a much more private manor. A project deep within Google however is aiming to make Gmail and it’s “social” awareness a lot more social.
If you’ve ever let your eyes wander to the the GTalk box within the Gmail panel, you’ve probably seen where you can update your status. Unlike the Facebook/Twitter status update, the GTalk update is more of a simple, custom “away message”. The updated Gmail/GTalk/social system will be updated to include other services in the update madness, making it easier to update your status (I’m assuming) across various networks and accounts.
It isn’t yet known exactly what accounts will be able to get GTalk/Gmail updates or what services said system will pull in. Will Gmail adapt a sort of social networking aggregation style similar to the likes of Seesmic? It’s an interesting development no less.
Million dollar question: Would you use it?
Mashable
[Image Source]
- November 18, 2009 3:35 pm
Users of Gmail who like to take weekly strolls through the Gmail labs area of the the gCloud will notice a new feature has popped up dubbed “Green Robot”. The word “Green” and “Robot” coming from anything Google could only mean one thing: Android. Activating this feature will simply make your Gmail contact chat dots who use Android devices display as color coded Android icons instead of the typical colored dot.
By no means is it a productivity booster or performance enhancing trick. It’s nothing but a cool little visual treat to spruce up your inbox and splash your Android fetish over yet another service/product. According to Google, this feature was made solely to make conversations between Gtalk/Gmail users more efficient by allowing users to “tailor their messages depending on their recipients device”. You obviously don’t want to write small novels on your phone nor do you want to read them. But why stop at just Android?
While I understand Gmail is a Google product, same as Android, is Google flirting with a lawsuit? As TechCrunch mentions, having cute little icons for all mobile devices (or at least several of the most popular) would be a cool. Plus, bundling more and more of their own products together is casting them in the same light that Microsoft lives in. And we all know how often anti-trust issues seem to crop up around them.
Impending doom aside, with this lab feature enabled you can remain fairly confident that at the very least you’ll come off as a dork. And just in case you were wondering, I enabled this feature. Dork I are…
TechCrunch
Yes another social butterfly post. Forgive me. Socialness seems to be all the rage these days. Everyone has it seems 3 or more different messaging accounts. I guess one isn’t good enough anymore. Though I can understand this if you have many friends of whom each one is partial to a particular client, then things get dicey for you. That is where multi-chat apps come in to save the day. Instead of having five different apps running with five different chat windows each, everything is now nicely organized into one app. In the push to be social while mobile, multi chat apps for mobiles has really taken off. Today we’re going to look at IM+ by SHAPE services.
