[Michael Johnston]

Beejive IM (pronounced "bee-hive") is an instant messaging application that supports nearly every chat system known to the Internet, including AIM, Yahoo!, Facebook, Google Talk, and MSN. You can log in to multiple accounts at once, chat with as many buddies as you like, and even send them photos and voice memos. In an upcoming update, you'll even be able to send videos from your iPhone 3GS. And of course, version 3.0 (which this review is about) comes with support for push notifications!

Let's start with the most anticipated feature, push notifications. When you first open Beejive, you'll be asked if you'd like to turn on push notifications. These notifications show up similar to text messages whenever you receive an IM while the app isn't running. You can individually toggle pop-ups, sounds, and icon badges from within the system-wide settings. Additionally, you can customize the alert sound from within the Beejive settings. The app can be set to automatically go away as soon as you exit the app or after a specified time away from the app. If you don't open Beejive for a long time, you'll be automatically signed out.

We've made a video of push notifications for you to check out below:



Also new in 3.0 is meta contacts. Instead of displaying a list of buddy handles, you can link your friends to their respective contact cards and see a list of human names instead. On top of simply showing their names and pictures, linking buddies to contacts lets you quickly view contact information right from Beejive! If you've linked buddy names to Address Book on your Mac, this'll work right out of the box. You can also set it up from within Beejive.

Once it's all set up, the result looks a bit like this:



In addition to meta contacts, the buddy list sports a new look as well as collapsable buddy categories. If you've got a big buddy list, there's a search option available as well as options for adding and removing buddies. Tapping the arrow next to a buddy's name shows additional information, including linked contact info. From there you can call, SMS, or email a buddy. If you've used Beejive before, you'll notice that the new buddy list is a bit cleaner and much more responsive than previous versions.

Chatting in Beejive is quite similar to using the SMS app. Your buddy's messages are shown on the left and your messages are shown on the right. However, typing messages is a bit different from the SMS app. When you begin typing, a black, translucent bubble appears over the conversation. Whatever you type appears in the bubble. Once you tap send, the black bubble disappears and your message is sent. If you're used to seeing a "typing" indicator which shows that the other party is typing, you won't get that in Beejive. It's not a big deal, but it's worth mentioning. Tapping the top bar from within a chat allows you to quickly switch between chats. You can even chat in landscape!

Links sent in-chat can be viewed in Safari or in the in-app browser. The in-app browser lets you do basic stuff like panning and zooming, but it doesn't have a landscape mode and no refresh/back/forward/stop controls. But since you have push with Beejive, hopping over to Safari isn't really the end of the world.

Copy and paste support has also been added to Beejive 3.0. Simply tap and hold on a chat bubble to copy text from it. You can then paste the text wherever you want.

SMS support is included as well so you can send messages to mobile phones without using texts. How cool is that?

In addition to sending plain text, you can also send photos and video (iPhone 3GS only) from your camera or photo library and voice notes from your iPhone's microphone. You can receive and open text, audio, video, PDFs, and just about anything else the iPhone supports.

Overall, Beejive's interface is very functional and even clever at times. You can change chat bubble colors, sounds, and even add backgrounds to your chats. Unfortunately, having so many features seems to have cluttered the interface a bit. In spite of not being the prettiest iPhone app out there, the features totally won us over. It just rocks!

[Pyromatrix2k2]

I really like your reviews because you don't sugar coat anything. You're always giving honest opinions.

I think its worth mentioning that this app has been $9.99 for a while, until the updated v3.0 is released from the app approval process, so get it while you still can for six bucks cheaper! I am at a stalemate though. I already own this and I just saw Shape's IM+ app (also $9.99). They pretty much do the same things, but IM+ has one thing over BeeJive that I am more than curious about. They've got Twitter and Skype compatability now. I guess I am asking you to review that as well. A side-by-side comparison would probably be quite helpful, but wouldn't be completely needed. I just want to hear your thoughts on it and know if its worth switching to. I always loved the BeeJive web app over the IM+ web app pre FW2.0, so I'm guessing that's an indication. Also, you know the BeeJive guys I'm assuming. Do you think they'd ever add Twitter and Skype to the app? This would dominate all even more so than it already does if that was added. I'm addicted to Tweetie, but if it'll save me an app slot on my million pages, I'm all for it.

[alanki]

I may have missed it, and if so, I apologize, but does this review mention that the currently available version in the iTMS is 2.1.0, not the 3.0 version that is reviewed (which is still under review by Apple)?

I'm guessing 3.0 will be available soon, but like the IM+ reviews I've read which tout push notifications on a version that isn't yet available, people may be disappointed if they expect push notification to be available in the current version when it is not.

Just FYI.

[Pyromatrix2k2]

Originally Posted by alanki

I may have missed it, and if so, I apologize, but does this review mention that the currently available version in the iTMS is 2.1.0, not the 3.0 version that is reviewed (which is still under review by Apple)?

I'm guessing 3.0 will be available soon, but like the IM+ reviews I've read which tout push notifications on a version that isn't yet available, people may be disappointed if they expect push notification to be available in the current version when it is not.

Just FYI.

Personally, I think these two companies, along with a bazillion others, submitted FW3.0 versions all at the same damn time, so the approval list is being swamped. I'm guessing that its being bombarded with app updates more than usual, so it'll take longer than it normally does to go through because of Apple's ultamatum "BE READY FOR 3.0 OR GTFO!" (paraphraseing...)

[thuggedout]

I strongly recommand Beejive over any other IM client on the iPhone. I've used Yahoo's and Aim and they both do not support loggin into more than one account which Beejive does. For that reason I suggest Beejive as the IM app to use.

[Kevin Dunahee]

Soooo... how's that update process coming along?

[SockMonkey]

I just had to re-install this app on my new 3GS. When I downloaded via the app store on my iPhone, I got the new version.

[Sam100]

I like beejive coz, it allows you to login into multiple accounts at once and it is greatly useful for me. I use one ID for official purpose and another for personal purpose and this feature helps me greatly in running two accounts parallely. Thats the main reason I like it.

[ipguy]

is anyone experimenting excessive battery drain since installing BJ ?

[gabriel_bl]

Originally Posted by ipguy

is anyone experimenting excessive battery drain since installing BJ ?

I noticed it too.
My phone used to last whole weekend when I fully charged it at work Friday afternoon (I usually not use it that much over the weekend).
Yesterday I installed Beejive at work, my phone was fully charged when I left the office (around 5pm), but this morning it was dead empty - this never happened to me.

This was big surprise to me - I though the push service should save a battery. I haven't received any pushed message last night.

[ipguy]

Originally Posted by gabriel_bl

This was big surprise to me - I though the push service should save a battery. I haven't received any pushed message last night.

same problem here

it's beejive that's the problem, i experimented with IM+ and it doesn't drain my battery like Beejive does.

[SockMonkey]

Originally Posted by ipguy

same problem here

it's beejive that's the problem, i experimented with IM+ and it doesn't drain my battery like Beejive does.

How can this be? Not saying you guys are wrong, I just don't understand it. The app shuts down on the phone when you exit it. How can the app be causing the battery drain if you are not keeping it open constantly? For what it's worth, I have not been experiencing severe battery drain from beejive... at least not that I have noticed.

[Kevin Dunahee]

I'm really not clear on the reason for it, but I have the exact same thing going on. Upgrade iPhone 3G to 3.0, battery life is good. Purchase iPhone 3GS, battery life is good. Install Beejive and then battery life tanks on both. It is my only app with push notifications so I'm not sure how it stacks up against AIM or any others. However, uninstalling Beejive gives me my normal battery life back. It's a shame, but I am reasonably confident they can fix and/or improve it with an app update.

[SockMonkey]

Some discussion of this going on over in the BeeJive support forums...
http://www.beejive.com/support/forum...php?f=7&t=1883

[adrian]

Have you guys who've been using Beejive a lot with push notifications noitice the battery being affected much?

[Kevin Dunahee]

My battery life issue I mentioned in an above post has seemingly lessened/disappeared. I don't know. I am also suspicious that my battery meter was not performing accurately for the first week either. Since then, it seems to have a much more accurate reading of how much power actually remains.

Originally Posted by adrian

Have you guys who've been using Beejive a lot with push notifications noitice the battery being affected much?

As of late, push does seem pretty power efficient. It is a noticeable difference. If you take a look at your Usage tab in the Settings app, you will notice that your cell data received is exponentially greater than if push was turned off. Although, reading the Beejive forums, it seems this is the only app that does this, so it's likely a bug. If you want a more immediate idea as to whether or not you have this issue, put your phone up to an susceptible speaker system and see if the phone is constantly pulling on the cell network.