Tag: Beejiveim »

We adored Beejive IM for iPhone when we last looked at it back in November, giving it a 5/5 star rating. And rightly so—Beejive is a premium chat app with a gigantic suite of features, touting everything from a slick interface to push notifications to support for multiple accounts and services. It was even selected as one of the top apps by Apple in the iTunes Rewind 2009 feature.

Now, the folks at Beejive, Inc have released an iPad-native version of their award-winning iPhone app. BeejiveIM for iPad is very similar to the iPhone app, but with the interface overhauled to support the iPad's larger screen. It's designed to work best in landscape view, in which your buddy list, current chat, and open chats each appear in their own column on-screen. Portrait view is still functional, of course; your buddy list simply slides off-screen, to be accessed by a button tap when needed, leaving you with your current chat and a list of your open chats.

Of course, all of the features which have earned Beejive its accolades are still present; you can juggle multiple accounts, take advantage of push notifications, and connect to services ranging from AIM to Google Talk to Jabber. The lovely giant-image background can either be taken from Beejive's built-in library or from your own camera roll.

This new app comes at a cost, of course. Beejive has always been a premium IM app, and the iPad version will set you back by $9.99, regardless of if you already own the iPhone version. If you're willing to pay for quality, however, consider it an investment. Beejive already rules the iPhone IM arena for good reason; now, we'll likely see it dominating the iPad, too.