MobileChat now available in the App Store

There ARE free IM apps available already from the App Store. No one is forcing you to pay for IM. And the developers aren't greedy. They are business people. They are offering a product for a price that they feel is justified.

This is akin to saying that Microsoft Office should be free or cheap because it's a word processing suite and something that most people will at some point need. And guess what? There are alternatives to Microsoft Office, some of them free, some of them not, as a response to this. No one is forcing anyone to buy Microsoft Office. But millions of people do, enought that they have no problem keeping the price high. If all it took was market demand, this would not be the case.

The fact is the developers obviously NEED the money. So many people downloaded and are using the app that it crashed their servers. In order to continue to support the app and allow it to function, they need new servers and bandwith and staff and everything else. I would imagine part of the reason they are charging for this is exactly because of that.

I don't even know who you feel is to blame here. You seem to be blaming the developer for charging for something that you think should be free. If this is the case, why aren't you blaming Apple for not including an IM client in the original iPhone software? If it's such a necessity that you can't have a usable smartphone without it, how do you explain the fact that Apple has already sold millions of iPhones and are prepared to sell millions and millions more?

And besides all of this, SMS offers essentially the same functionality as an IM client. It allows you to send messages to other people that they can quickly read and respond to. Granted, there are certain functions a dedicated IM client has that SMS doesn't, but they aren't essential. And if you need to send longer messages, pictures, basically whatever, use email. With email push notification, you'll get it just as fast as any IM client.

I was referring to *actual* always-on IM clients. I thought I'd made that clear. So, they're business men--that precludes them from being greedy? I think it kind of guarantees it. I believe my point was that *I* felt their price *wasn't* fair--I'm not sure what you are gaining by simply repeating what I already assumed.

Actually, if you recall, the last HALF of my comment suggests they charge $1. Thanks for paying attention.

Regarding M$ Office, they charge too much, as well. It shouldn't be free, but I think it's pretty obvious that if they charged $10 or $20 for M$ Office (or say, that much for each part of Office) they'd sell a lot more copies.

Oh and news flash, there are plenty of alternatives to M$ Office--many of them cheaper or even free. So, guess what I don't have on my machine--yep. M$ Office.

Once again, thanks for paying attention. The ultimate point of my comment was that if they charged $1, they'd sell *even more* copies. I think they *should* have money--I just know that I, for one, won't pay $3.99 or whatever higher price they want to set. They want to follow the same, predictable business plan as other "business men," fine. They'll do it without my money, and I'm sure that's fine with them--all I'm saying is that I think they look greedy charging that much and I think they will sell more by charging less. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to suggest.

I do blame Apple for not including a decent (read: comparable to the *Sidekick*) IM client for free. I blame them for having a closed system. I can install anything I want on my MacBook out of the box, but my phone? Nope--and if that's not enough, His Steveness can shut down any apps on my iPhone at whim. I blame Apple for a lot of lameness in the iPhone. I had hoped developers would pick up the ball Jobs dropped. I had hoped they wouldn't try to take advantage--silly me--I forgot they are "business men."

For the third time, you keep insisting that I demand that the developers of MobileChat charge nothing for their app--my point was that they could make "MASSIVE bucks" if they charged $1 or did you not read that part of my comment?

As for why so many people bought iPhones--are you seriously asking me that question? Because it's the iPhone, why do you think?? It's Apple--the hype around this thing has been insane. People call it the Jesus Phone. The thing is, people are wrong. People are stupid or assume things will be there but aren't (like me).

That's pretty much what I said in my comment, as well--that I assumed Apple would have the basic stuff AND the new cool stuff. Instead, I just traded sideways. Cooler stuff, but at the cost of something as basic to computing as *multitasking* (it's not just an IM client that is missing from the iPhone basic feature-set, but the ability to have more than one app up at a time). Are you really going to defend Apple for not allowing their phone to multitask???

You can't compare SMS to IM, dude--not by a long shot. Instant messages are FREE. SMS messages cost. You need a whole extra add-on to your wireless plan to get them unlimited, so once again, you're all for people spending more for the same abilities they had before for free.

I can't decide if you're a developer or a business man. Either way, you must have a different value of money than I do. You want to spend too much on something that should be cheaper (or even free) go right ahead, but please don't criticize me for wanting to get my money's worth. I regret getting my iPhone for a lot of reasons--a lack of a decent IM client is one of them. I have a lot of other cool things with my iPhone, so I'm not running back to the Apple store-but it's sad when people decide to make money off of an intentional shortcoming. It's called "exploitation of a need" when someone charge so much.

yeah, there have been a lot of questions on their site (in comments) about the security of their product. i'm not aware that any of this has been addressed by the developers, but it sounds like they're a bit busy at the moment...

it could be perfectly secure for all we know, or they're just storing all our accounts in a text file un-encrypted...

does anyone in the world still use ICQ?
i have a super low ICQ number, and used to have hundreds of contacts. every once in awhile I sign in, just for kicks, and no ones there but some crickets and some ad-bots...

i have about 100 people in my list ... icq is still popular with old-school gamers and SOME new users, most girls use MSN, since it sucks but looks pretty because it is white ;D