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Rumors: Jabber support spotted by iPhone insider

by Erica Sadun Apr 27th 2008 at 5:00PM

Our anonymous iControl tipster has returned and tells us that a new XMPP framework has been spotten in the latest iPhone firmware. XMPP refers to the open source standard developed by the Jabber community for instant messaging. Remember back in March when Apple announced it would support native instant messaging? In a nutshell, it looks like Apple's new iPhone-based chat will be built on Jabber/XMPP.

Unfortunately, we're told that this XMPP support remains in a private framework and will not be available to 3rd party SDK developers. Apple has made a strong commitment to sand-boxed development, allowing developers little access to the underlying OS and frameworks. Single-purpose apps like games should thrive in this development environment while less bounded utilities like social networking apps may struggle--or at least have to depend strongly on web-based servers.



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Our anonymous iControl tipster has returned and tells us that a new XMPP framework has been spotten in the latest iPhone firmware. XMPP...
 

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Sam Johnston

So it turns out the code is actually being used for the notification service itself (eg MobileMe push mail)! I've written about it over here: http://samj.net/2008/07/apple-iphone-20-real-story-behind-push.html

July 17 2008 at 11:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Vinnie

IM is so last decade, Twinkle's da app!

April 27 2008 at 9:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
maybesew

With jabber, and more importantly offline message support, you don't need your app to be running all the time, nor running in the background. Just wake the phone up and see who sent you a message, then reply. If you have an active conversation, leave it as the active app, if not, save battery and check back later.

April 27 2008 at 9:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
alxndr

Google Chat?

April 27 2008 at 7:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to alxndr's comment
Ryan

That would be XMPP, aka Jabber.

So yes.

April 27 2008 at 8:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Hong

XMPP is an AWESOME addition!!!
There are more to it than just IM

April 27 2008 at 6:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

The March SDK event also showed AIM. A recent patent finding shows an IM client that uses all common protocols: AIM, Jabber, Yahoo and MSN.

Apple will have to include MSN Messenger/Live support if it wants to make the iPhone a viable consumer smartphone outside the US where MSN Messenger is king.

April 27 2008 at 5:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to Chris's comment
Joshua Ochs

Or... they can just include Jabber support themselves, like all chat apps on OS X do...

@starkruzr: Feel free to Jailbreak, but after all, the major reason to use Apple stuff is it Just Works. Running a jailbroken iPhone is like running OS X on a Dell. Sure you can make it work with a lot of hassle (and update issues and such) but it will never appeal to more than a niche.

April 27 2008 at 5:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Joshua Ochs's comment
Tony Hoyle

Jailbreaking hassle? It takes about 2 minutes, and you can buy pre-jailbroken iphones on the high street (my favourite around here is a CPW store advertising the iphone on one side, and nearby a shop selling jailbroken sim-free ones with an equally large advert :p).

The problem is it doesn't 'just work' - there are some things that need 3rd party software to fix - the ability to delete SMS messages for example (no idea what was going through steve's head when he decided to miss that one out).

April 27 2008 at 6:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jtd

What are you talking about? There are no upgrade issues. And the major reason I use Apple stuff is because it's technically superior. A jailbroken iPhone is better than anything else you can get right now. The jailbroken iPhone experience is nothing like the Hackintosh experience.

April 27 2008 at 11:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jtd

Or we can just jailbreak and have access to all the APIs we need.

April 27 2008 at 5:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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