2008 July | iPhone News Updated

One Palringo to rule iPhone IM?

Posted in iPhone News by admin. Published July 30th, 2008

Palringo's the first multi-chat protocol app for the iPhone.

The new iPhone app from Palringo brings an official multi-instant messaging client to the Apple device. It supports eight chat protocols and includes some useful iPhone-specific features, but also suffers from several irritating limitations.

Palringo can handle Apple iChat, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber, and Windows Live Messenger. Assuming you’ve got no problems with the iPhone keyboard, creating a profile for one of these accounts is as simple as selecting the proper icon and typing in your username and password. First, though, you must set up a Palringo account. Not to worry: when you open the Palringo app for the first time, it will redirect you to their Web site for registration.

When you receive a message, it gets dumped into the universal in-box at the bottom left corner of the screen. This may sounds chaotic, but I was surprised at how well it worked. The camera feature worked flawlessly, too. When you select a contact to chat with, tap the camera icon in the lower right corner and you can either take a fresh photo that will be instantly sent, or send an already-saved photo from your album.

However, do note that the photo gets uploaded to Palringo’s servers and stored there for 10 days. Users must then download images to keep them. Click here to see the image that Jason Parker sent me from his iPhone.
Palringo offers a variety of status options, but no clear way to log out of one client.

The big hang-up, if you’ll forgive the pun, is that the app doesn’t offer a way to sign out of an account once it’s been created. You can change the status of an account to Invisible, Busy, or Away, with the default status being Online, but there’s no way to be logged in to your AIM but not your ICQ.

Also, since the iPhone can currently use only one app at a time, you must be running the app to receive new messages. The phone vibrates when it does, but that won’t do you much good without having the app always on. The promised voice-chat feature has yet to be implemented, too.

Even with these drawbacks, for people who don’t have a jailbroken phone Palringo offers a solid and Apple-approved way to get access to all your IMs at once.

Originally posted at The Daily Download

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Palringo Brings First ‘Rich Messaging Service’ to the iPhone

Posted in iPhone News by admin. Published July 30th, 2008

LONDON, Jul 29, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — iPhone(TM) owners can now download Palringo’s rich messaging service (RMS) application from Apple(R)’s new App Store. Palringo enables picture messaging, text-based messaging and, soon, vocal instant messaging over the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo integrates with several existing popular instant-messaging (IM) services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger. People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple’s IM client.

Palringo offers two unique advantages to iPhone owners:

– People can stay connected to the most popular messaging services at the same time, without the need to switch between applications or use Web-based messaging services.

– In the current absence of multi-media messaging service (MMS) capabilities on the 3G iPhone, Palringo offers the ability to send and receive picture messages using the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo launches and connects within seconds, with a single screen tap. Palringo then presents a person’s IM contacts in a single, combined, presence-aware list, whichever IM service their contacts are using. Sending a voice, picture or text-based message, whether to an individual or a group, are also single screen-tap operations.

Vocal IM, which is already available on all other Palringo-supported platforms, will be added in the second release of Palringo for the iPhone.

Palringo CEO Kerry Ritz said: “Just as Apple has changed people’s view of what it should be like to use a mobile phone, so Palringo aims to change the way people see messaging. Billions of people already use instant messaging on their home or work computers to communicate with each other. Palringo has added vocal instant messaging and picture messaging and has put IM on the iPhone–that’s a great combination.”

Using Palringo will barely make a dent in an iPhone customer’s data usage: Just one megabyte is sufficient for Palringo to send/receive the equivalent of about 4,500 SMS messages, send/receive about 32 picture messages or send/receive as much as 15 minutes of vocal instant messages.

The service is available worldwide, which means conversations can incorporate people from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC or Mac. This makes it very attractive for multi-national corporate users or extended family use.

Palringo for the iPhone is free, and is easy to download and install from Apple’s new App Store. There are no hidden costs, catches or other charges.

As well as the iPhone–both the original and new models–Palringo works on almost all models of mobile phone released in the last two years; visit www.palringo.com.

Apple, iPhone, and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and other countries. All other product or service names mentioned in this announcement may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Additional links/resources:

– Screenshots: Palringo on the iPhone

– Alternative picture: Kerry Ritz, Palringo CEO

About Palringo

Palringo makes instant messaging work on mobile. It combines walkie-talkie style voice (vocal instant messaging) with the ‘chat’ functionality of instant messaging and offers the ability to share pictures too. Both one-to-one and group discussions are enabled, on any mobile network or connected PC. Palringo connects with other popular instant messaging services.

For more information, including logo and pictures, visit www.palringopressoffice.blogspot.com.

SOURCE: Palringo

Europe
Both Barrels Communications
Tim Donnelly Smith, +44 7978 800275
timds@bbcomms.co.uk
or
RoW
Comunicano, Inc.
Deb Jones, +1 856-363-9001
deb.jones@comunicano.com

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