Palringo integrates with several existing, popular instant messaging services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger. People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple’s instant messaging (IM) client.
Palringo offers two unique advantages to iPhone owners:
• people can stay connected to the most popular messaging services at the same time, without the need to switch between applications or use web-based messaging services
• in the current absence of MMS capabilities on the 3G iPhone, Palringo offers the ability to send and receive picture messages using the iPhone’s data connection
Palringo launches and connects within seconds, with a single screen-tap. Palringo then presents a person’s IM contacts in a single, combined, presence-aware list, whichever IM service their contacts are using. Sending a voice, picture or text-based message, whether to an individual or a group, are also single screen-tap operations.
Vocal IM, which is already available on all other Palringo-supported platforms, will be added in the second release of Palringo for the iPhone.
Kerry Ritz, Palringo’s CEO, said: “Just as Apple has changed people’s view of what it should be like to use a mobile phone, so Palringo aims to change the way people see messaging. Billions of people already use instant messaging on their home or work computers to communicate with each other. Palringo has added vocal instant messaging and picture messaging and has put IM on the iPhone – that’s a great combination.”
Using Palringo will barely make a dent in an iPhone customer’s data usage: just one megabyte is sufficient for Palringo to send/receive the equivalent of about 4,500 SMS messages, send/receive about 32 picture messages, or send/receive up to 15 minutes of vocal instant messages.
The service is available worldwide, which means conversations can incorporate people from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC or Mac. This makes it very attractive for multi-national corporate users or extended family use.