• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. (Sorry, we know our international readers want to participate, but promo codes don't transfer outside the US.)
• To enter leave a comment telling us your preferred IM protocol (AIM, Jabber, etc.).
• The comment must be left before April 3, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Four winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: Promo code for free copy of Agile Messenger for iPhone (US$9.99).
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Beejive IM [iTunes link], the Swiss army knife of instant messaging on the iPhone, was recently updated to version 2.0. Beejive allows you to connect with many different instant messaging services including: AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Live, Myspace IM, and Yahoo messenger. This application was already top-notch in the previous versions and this new version just makes things a lot better. Let's take a look at each of the changes to Beejive.

You are now able to send photos directly from your iPhone and have them show up in-line with the body of the chat. In addition, you can now easily see photos sent to your iPhone. Probably one of the coolest new features is the ability to record and send voice notes to your fellow chatters. Tapping on the toolbar at the top, which lists the current chat name, gets you four options. One of those options is a small microphone; tapping this icon makes your iPhone show a recording view, and instantly start recording audio. When you tap the stop button, your recording will be saved. You can play or record your voice note over again; if you want to send the voice note, tap the "Send" button and your voice note will be directly transferred to the current chat.

In addition to being able to send/receive audio on your iPhone or iPod touch using Beejive 2.0, you can also receive and open multiple types of files, including:

- Most image, audio, and video files
- PDFs
- Word documents
- Excel spreadsheets
- PowerPoint documents

I found that once you receive these types of files, you can also forward them to another person on your buddy list. Once you accept the file transfer, you will get a small blue button that will give you more details about the file that you just received; when you are in this view, you will be able to tap the forward button and find another person to forward it to.

By default, Beejive will use the default sounds for incoming/outgoing messages. These sounds are very similar to the sounds that iChat ships with; however, if you get tired of them, there is an option for you in this new version. You are now able to change the sounds in the Beejive section of Settings.app. Under "Sounds," you are able to change between default, AIM, and Yahoo sounds.

I found that there were two settings for transferring files, and both are useful. Under the "File Transfer" section of Settings.app > Beejive, you are able to choose between two ways of sending files: post a link or direct send preferred.

In my testing, version 2.0 of Beejive seemed extremely stable, and included features that made a big difference. I especially liked the ability to send/receive files right from the device. Beejive is available from the iTunes App Store for $15.99. While the price is high, this application is definitely worth it when you consider all of the capabilities you gain.

Gallery: Beejive 2.0

• Facebook timing out when attempting to connect is now fixed
• Avatar not updating in open message windows after change is now fixed
• Stopped Adium from crashing when updating an account password

• Get Info Window is now called the "Contact Inspector"
  
• The aforementioned Contact Inspector has a newly redesigned interface that allows for faster retrieval of contact information
  
• Facebook chat is now integrated into Adium 1.3
• Standard contact window list now features a search box (found by pressing command + F)
• Improved MSN support with personal messages
• Speed improvements
  
• Multiple bug fixes
  

• AIM/ICQ/.Mac/MobileMe
• Windows Live/MSN
• Yahoo
• GTalk
• Jabber

Big news today on the iPhone development front. This morning brings the release of both a native instant messaging client and a native IRC client.

Apollo IM just entered Version Negative 1, an early beta release. It is available as well via Installer.app. Apollo IM has been developed by "Arminius" and offers iPhone-native instant messaging capabilities. Future releases will support file transfer as well as MSN/Yahoo/Jabber/Gtalk support.

"Pogi"'s iRCm provides a GUI-based Internet Relay Chat client for your iPhone. You can join channels, issue raw IRC commands and take part in conversations. iRCm is available for download at Google Code, and packages have been loaded for both Installer.app and PXL.

Both applications have been developed with Shimmer/PXL, the iPhone auto-updates library. Shimmer allows iPhone code to "call home" and update themselves when new versions become available. Both developers are looking for feedback and plan to use this update feature to allow the program to keep growing via its installed base.

If you're interested in developing for either application, pop over to Google Code and download the latest SVN. Both projects offer a great opportunity to get involved in open source.

Thanks to Dylan Kenney

Gallery: IRC and IM on iPhone