GoogleTalk for the iPhone

#Google TalkAs you know, Doug is a huge fan of Google which made an iPhone optimized version of Google Talk very exciting. To use the iPhone optimized version of Google Talk, you will need to go to www.Google.com/talk on your iPhone. If you have signed in to any Google service in Safari before, you will be automatically signed in. Once you are signed in, you will see a list of all your contacts that are available to chat via Google Talk. If they are logged in, there will be a green circle next to their names. If the circle is grey, they are currently not online. You can then tap on the contact you would like to chat with. This will open a seperate chat window where you can type your message. You can also choose to have your chat “Go off the record” with that contact by selecting the down arrow next to the contacts name. To get back to the main menu, just select the Contacts option in the upper left corner. You will know you are in a conversation with someone when it puts a chat bubble next to their name. Google has also made changing your Status and searching your contacts very simple.

If you navigate away from the Google Talk browser and go into another browser or application on your iPhone, it will automatically set you status as unavailable and you will not receive any instant messages. When you return to the browser, your Google Talk session will be restarted. I did notice that it takes around 25 seconds (on WiFi) to reconnect which does seem a little long to me. Other than that, it looks great and is very user friendly. Below is Google’s official press release and screenshots.

Press Release:
Posted by Adam Connors, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

We’ve just released in the US a new version of Google Talk designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch browsers. In addition to sending your friends Gmail messages from your iPhone, you can now chat with them while you’re on the move, too! In your iPhone browser, just go to www.google.com/talk, sign in and start chatting. That’s it. Google Talk runs entirely in the browser so there’s no need to download or install anything.

There are some differences from using Google Talk on your computer. For instance, in order to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser. When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to “unavailable” and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return.

Other than that, we’ve tried to keep the design as faithful to the desktop experience as possible, so it should be familiar to you. You can select from a quicklist of the people you contact most, search your contacts, and manage multiple conversations. You’ll never have to miss out on the latest gossip or updates from friends just because you’re away from a computer.

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Comments

  1. Agile Messenger’s already got it : ) Now all they need to do, is polish up the app (bug fixes) and i’ll finally have a perfect messenger. I wonder if Beejive will come out with theirs…

    • I agree, but this web app will work well for non-jailbroke iPhones until the App Store and hopefully Google or someone will come out with something that supports GTalk.

  2. What ever happened to that myspace app?

  3. Ashish Sethi says

    so that’s the official application for non-jailbreak phone, kool for them but Fring serves the BEST for me, I’m online on all the messengers at the same time, isn’t that – KOOL…

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