I’ve been a uge fan of Jabber for a long time, but been really struggling to find a decent mobile client to go with my phone. What I would really like to see is:
- good usability
- ability to connect to own jabber server
- support for TLS
- ability to capure images and send them to contacts
VoIP and other features like gateways to other IM-networks that many seem to offer are not that important for me.
So far I tested following clients:
Fring – http://www.fring.com/
Has support for GTalk, but not generic XMPP-support. This seems to be a constant request on their forum, but no luck.
Bombus – http://bombus-im.org/
Bombus is open source Jabber-client from russia that is promising, but did not work so well for me when I tested it. Have to still keep an eye on it.
IM+ – http://www.shapeservices.com/en/products/details.php?product=im
Commercial IM+ is otherwise really good piece of software, but it seems that there is not a way to join into groupchats on Jabber server. However ability to send images and record voice messages – as well as usage of other IM networks like MSN are a nice plus.
For 29 dollars this is a good option. Have to wait fr reply from technical team whether group chat features will be in the product in the future.
Gizmo5 – http://gizmo5.com/pc/
Nokia’s Gizmo5 was a big disappointment. It seems to be a combination of VoIP and instant messaging, but the usability sucked golf balls trough the garden hose. Not the service for me.
Nimbuzz – http://www.nimbuzz.com/
Similar service as many others, offeirng connectivity to numerous networks and voip-services. However I am not sure whether you can connect to your own servers – and whether it supports jabber groupchats. Seems that Nimbuzz has it’s own groupchats. Once again, not the service for me.
Talkonaut – http://www.talkonaut.com/
Promising client from russia that supports connecting private jabber-servers and seems to support groupchats. Did not try to connect to own Openfire-server, but read from the forums that it should work. Very promising option, though usability is not among the best.
Agile Messenger – http://www.agilemobile.com/
Most expensive client of the ones that I tested, one time fee of 44 dollars. But not possible to join in group discussions. Very good usability and in general a very solid product.
Instango – http://www.instango.com/index.php
Very cool client that can also connect to your own servers, if you purchase the pro version for 10 euros.
Seems that there is no way to join group discussions. I did put a feature request to their forums though, let’s see if they respond to it.
From these tests I’d say that IM+, Instango or Agile Messenger would be best options for me at the moment. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
