By The Rowdy One
In this day and age, mobile access is one of the cornerstones of our very beings. We thought laptops and mobile phones were going to be the end all and be all of our technological existence. Then tablets came along and even laptops became somewhat obsolete. With the evolution of technology, how are we able to continue the same functions on our mobile devices that we are using on our desktops and laptops? Applications or “Apps” came to our rescue.
So, what apps are right for you? Well, that’s why I’m here to help. Call me your “App-solute Hero”. I’m here to help those who need help in choosing the right app. Now of course, one could just go to the market that’s associated with their device to find the app they need, but wouldn’t you want a second opinion before you go spend that hard earned $.99?
So, what do we talk about today? Today, we’re looking at cross platform instant messengers. What is that you ask? Crossplatform instantmessengers are instant messengers that can be used on multiple devices and operating systems. When it comes to mobilty, these messngers are the best way to stay in touch with some who may have a different phone than yours, and it avoids you from having to use IM services like AOL or Google Talk.
With over one million downloads, WhatsApp has been the reigning champ. While their time on the top has been strong, there are two other cross platform messengers out there that I feel can give WhatsApp a run for the money. One app is called eBuddyXMS and the other is from the good people at Samsung called ChatOn. Let’s look at the two contenders.
(Please excuse the cheesy porn music, that was the best video I could find)
I’ve tried out both of these apps and I find Samsung’s ChatOn much easier to setup and use. With eBuddy XMS, you can find contacts by connecting your Facebook account, having the app scan your phone book, or use Googleaccount. I tried using my Google account and the app had a hard time connecting, so I said “bump that” and let that connection go. The Facebook connection shows you if any of your Facebook friends are using eBuddy XMS and you can have Facebook chats in the app. That’s cool when you’re chatting with someone on Facebook, but if you’re not one of those people, it becomes useless.
With ChatOn, the set up is very simple. Once you download the app, it verifies your number. Once the verification goes through, it scans your phone book and looks for other people with the app. It’s so simple, my 62 year old mother-in-law learned how to use the app in 10 minutes. You can connect your Facebook account to ChatOn, but that’s mainly for the icon picture which is similar to WhatsApp does.
eBuddy XMS’s layout for chatting is nice and the chat boxes look cool. On ChatOn, on initial look, not so much on the nice tip for the chat boxes. You can however, change the look of the chat room to however you want with their pre-installed layouts or you can add a background similar to what you can do on WhatsApp.
The one feature that both apps have that WhatsApp doesn’t have is that both apps have web clients. So if you need to turn off your phone at any point, or if you’re i front of a computer all day and can’t find the time to use your phone, you can just log into the web client and continue your conversation. I’ve used the web client for numerous occasions at home when chatting with my wife using ChatOn and it works really well. The response time was perfect.
In the end, it all depends on what works best for you and those around you who will be using the app. For me, the simplicity of ChatOn and the web client is what sold me. Also, I was very impressed with the easy setup and quick response time during conversations. It’s now the main cross platform messenger for my family and hopefully I can get my friends on board as well. Hopefully others will be saying goodbye to WhatsApp and get their “chat on” with ChatOn.
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