Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone
Experimental web app could bring AIM chat to iPhone
While the jury will of course be out until June 29th as to whether web-based chat apps like Meebo could be used on the iPhone to work around the lack of a true, built-in chat app, David Cann has developed an experimental web interface that might bring AIM to next week's highly-anticipated gadget. The service is up and running already, allowing users to log into AIM using Cann's page, but the adjective 'experimental' is used for a reason. First, it's suffering some rocky performance due, in part, to being dugg, but it's also based simply on some JavaScript that Cann is running with his own servers (while this might scare some privacy advocates, Cann promises users that he isn't harvesting any information or chats. Do with that what you will).Cann's iChat for iPhone service, as it's called, is also fairly limited in functionality, at least for now; this definitely isn't your Mac's iChat. Right now there are no groups, no buddy icons and opening more than 4 chats apparently is not recommended. Usage is also limited to only 10 minutes per session also, probably to help Cann sleep at night while he's tinkering with polishing this.
Still, if at least some form of iChat is strongly desired or simply a necessity for some iPhone users, this iChat for iPhone could overcome the hurdle for at least a few potential customers. Of course, we're all expecting Apple to provide a more serious solution at some point, but as with so many other Apple-related offerings, we'll just have to play the waiting game.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jonathan said 6:23PM on 6-24-2007
It's interesting that Apple hasn't provided developers (at least those of us who aren't working for the Adobes and such) with more information on the iPhone. "It'll work with AJAX and Javascript" is pretty vague, and I know that I personally am eagerly waiting to see what options developers will have interfacing with the phone and maps features that Jobs has promised. I guess it all goes down on Friday, and it sure will be interesting to watch the rat race that developers go through to get their apps out first.
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hbtreutel said 6:24PM on 6-24-2007
Oh my god, welcome to June 13th. How can you guys not notice something like this earlier?
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turkish said 6:33PM on 6-24-2007
Dear Apple,
Choosing to not include iChat on the phone was Very Dumb. This dude can do it in his spare time. You should do it now. Thanks,
-Everyone
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Katie said 6:38PM on 6-24-2007
Isn't there already a web-based "AIM Express" that people can use going through AOL's system rather than running it through a third-party system?
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Douglas A. Brace said 6:58PM on 6-24-2007
AIM Express works in Safari 3.0.2 for Windows (I won't install Safari 3 on Mac OS X 10.4.10 until all bugs are worked out).
Not sure how this works for Safari on the iPhone but make sure pop-ups aren't blocked because AIM Express requires pop-ups for the chat windows.
Should be interesting to see if and how AIM Express works with the iPhone.
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Douglas A. Brace said 7:12PM on 6-24-2007
One additional comment -- I have 2 different AIM account and I loaded http://www.publictivity.com/iPhoneChat/ in different browsers and logged into each AIM account and the interfaces really does work although text doesn't properly align on the artificial iPhone screen the way it is supposed to. This is probably a programming error because the same problem happens in IE7, Safari 3.0.2 for Windows, Firefox 2.0.0.4, and SeaMonkey 1.1.2.
Should be interesting to try this http://www.publictivity.com/iPhoneChat/ and AIM Express once the iPhone comes out.
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steve said 7:39PM on 6-24-2007
I interviewed the developer over at last100
http://www.last100.com/2007/06/22/iphone-the-limits-of-third-party-apps/
:)
iPhone web apps certainly have their limits.
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Justin said 7:38PM on 6-24-2007
What about something like meebo.com?
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Dave Chartier said 7:39PM on 6-24-2007
Sure, AOL might have made web-based solutions for chatting over AIM, but how much you want to bet they have a snowball's chance in hell in working in Safari on the iPhone?
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Dave Chartier said 7:39PM on 6-24-2007
Sure, AOL might have made web-based solutions for chatting over AIM, but how much you want to bet they have a snowball's chance in hell in working in Safari on the iPhone?
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andres said 7:26AM on 6-27-2007
has anyone else noticed the new google talk web-base client http://www.google.com/talk/
It seems to match the aspect ratio of the iPhone perfectly. The behaviors are also very iphone-like. When a buddy is selected instead of opening a new chat window (the standard behavior among IM clients) it slides it in, on top of the buddy list. I can't see this not being developed with the iPhone in mind. Maybe this is one of the many to come google apps for the iphone.
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David Cann said 8:17PM on 6-24-2007
#11, Unfortunately, it looks like that new Google Talk is written in Flash, so it won't work on the iPhone. I wish it would.
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Ed said 9:41PM on 6-24-2007
I don't usually post "old news" comments, but honestly what stone are you living under? If you miss news, don't report it almost two weeks later?
Next you'll be reporting the invention of a device called the "iPod" and declaring that it might be the "next big thing"...
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nawtyeravgjoe said 12:15AM on 6-25-2007
well, old news or not, i'm glad they posted this. not everybody spends the whole day refreshing apple blogs every five seconds.
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Michael said 3:09AM on 6-25-2007
One suspects that AT & T would not have agreed to take the iPhone if it had had a chat client.
What they would want people to use for text-chat is SMS, because, AFAIK, every SMS message sent gets charged for. However, if you can connect to a wireless access point with a handheld device, such as the iPhone, you can, effectively, do the same thing free. That can't be a pleasant thought for a mobile phone company.
Once the device is out I'm sure, in time, a way around that will be found. Google Talk, as someone mentioned, ought in theory to be a way around that. Unfortunately, while Safari 3 has better JavaScript support and is far more interoperable with GMail than Safari 2 was, it still doesn't show the chat interface in the GMail window. (You can see it all right in Firefox.) Presumably, Google's JavaScript is _still_ just a bit too much for Safari 3.
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basscadet said 3:44AM on 6-25-2007
any phone that can find alternative (and free) ways of communication using WiFi can skip some cash from the carrier network and they won't like Skype or chat progs ported to iphones and/or competition. The question is how far will they go hardwiring obstacles into the phone design without making them ... useless dumbphones.
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Michael said 4:48AM on 6-25-2007
I wondered about Jabber - which is what, incidentally, GMail uses for chat. Googling around I find there is an open-source implementation of a Jabber web application that, on the client-side, requires only HTML and JavaScript.
http://jwchat.sourceforge.net/
I wonder if Safari's JavaScript-support is up to the task. If you look at the "Supported Browsers" link, they say:
"Support for safari coming soon..."
We have a two-way thing if the developers of this application are trying to meet Safari, and Apple's engineers are steadily improving Safari's JavaScript support at the same time. I guess it's possible this application may even work right now with Safari 3.
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Kevin said 5:05AM on 6-25-2007
This is one of the main reasons I'm not getting an iPhone. It's unforgiveable that they are releasing a phone that is supposedly "the full internet, on your phone ... not some watered-down version", yet it doesn't offer any sort of iChat/AIM functionality built-in. AIM Express sucks bigtime on mobile phones. Couple that with the low memory and the lack of 3G and I'm out until they fix 'em. If it had some sort of instant messaging function, I might be persuaded, but this was the nail in the coffin.
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Michael said 5:05AM on 6-25-2007
Actually, the new beta for Yahoo chat web access seems to work with Safari 3. And Yahoo has a welcome page saying it will work with Windows Live Messenger, too.
http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/
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Metryq said 6:10AM on 6-25-2007
Am I the only who thinks text chat over a PHONE is absurd? I know kids run up huge bills doing it, but wouldn't a voice chat (seeing as it's a phone) be faster and cheaper? Text chat was designed to cope with the limitations of the Web in its early days. I suppose the next big development will be voice recognition for text chat so that you don't need to strain your thumbs typing. By the time we have BrainPals capable of sending thought messages in an almost telepathic way, we'll still have developers coming up with ways to turn it into text!
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