Mobilechat finally up!

[Sobe]

The only reason that comparison was made was due to the fact that most of you guys apparently never typed a line of code in your life, and just don't understand the complexity of the project at hand. It's not remotely as complex as an MMO, but some of the underlying challenges are the same. I figured that would be something most people here could relate to.

Rolling out something like mobile chat is a challenge, even more so with just two people. If you're going to laugh at it and say it's a joke, or it's inexcusable, or whatever - back it up. Lets see something you developed by yourself that rivals MC's complexity. Personally, I'm impressed with what they've pushed out so far. It's a little rough around the edges, but the base seems to be there.

I'm not questioning their skill or their product. And I don't think it's a joke either.

I just thought it was a weak and fuzzy comparison.

As far as development goes, that's a rather nihilistic argument, designed to cut off debate and limit involvement much like jargon keeps outsiders out and insiders in.

I don't need to have developed my own software product to take issue with a silly comparison, but if you're interested in my cv rather than just trying to be rude, I'll be happy to discuss that with you in private.

 

[kickpush]

It's been out for about 2 weeks, I was highly excited about this program but now I don't even open it anymore.

+Still rarely connects
+The buddy list doesn't refresh
+Cannot log into AIM
+Yahoo connects when it wants to (sometimes I have to close the app out by holding the home button for 10 seconds and locking the phone and opening the program up)
+Only a few buddy icons show
+Invisible mode doesn't work
​

it was only 3 bucks and I understand having growing pains but I feel the frustration of the members that are complaining. Even Palringo got their act together after the first few days, although I really hate the interface of it... it's the only usable IM App in the App Store. AIM has never connected over EDGE for me so I do not use it.

 

[slicecom]

+Invisible mode doesn't work

That's my only complaint. Its working great for me (I only use MSN) other than invisible mode doesn't work.

 

[spyker3292]

Invosable mode doesn't work is a bit misleading. Invisible mode isn't a feature! But for me the app works fine minus a few features I want. I feel pretty bad for the devs. This app has a 2/5 review because of the server issues, this is why the reviews should be different for each version.... Of course these reviews for all the apps are pretty stupid and I've learned to ignore most of them.

 

[njchris]

Is there any way to reconnect if you lose connection to ONE of the services. For example, I'm connected with MSN, Google and AIM. But AIM drops for whatever reason.

I can't reconnect to JUST one service. Also I can't see a way to disconnect from just ONE service. It's all or nothing.

 

[slicecom]

Is there any way to reconnect if you lose connection to ONE of the services. For example, I'm connected with MSN, Google and AIM. But AIM drops for whatever reason.

I can't reconnect to JUST one service. Also I can't see a way to disconnect from just ONE service. It's all or nothing.

To disconnect from one service, go into the Accounts section, tap edit and the account you want to disconnect then toggle the Enabled switch. That's the only way I've found to do it.

 

[kickpush]

Invosable mode doesn't work is a bit misleading. Invisible mode isn't a feature! But for me the app works fine minus a few features I want. I feel pretty bad for the devs. This app has a 2/5 review because of the server issues, this is why the reviews should be different for each version.... Of course these reviews for all the apps are pretty stupid and I've learned to ignore most of them.

How is it not it a feature? It's a bug within the program. It works fine on Palringo (although I despise that app). Why do you feel bad? This app has been hyped up for awhile, they took precautions and still could not keep up with the demand. Server issues are understandable within the first few days, but it's going on two weeks since it has been released. I think it deserves 2/5 because it wasn't ready for prime time yet. They should have allowed more beta testers. I think it was very rushed and they've admitted they weren't prepared, and while that's all well and good... when they fix the issues wrong with the program then they'll deserve a higher rating. The rating system is somewhat flawed, and I think they should only allow people to vote who have actually purchased a application and not random people putting their .2 cent in.

It's the best looking IM app (albiet out of the 3 that's in the App store, 2 because I hardly use AIM) but that's about all it's got going for it right now.

Hopefully, the update will correct at least some of the major issue's people have been having.

 

[juice831]

I was totally stoked on this app for what it is supposed to be but so far it hasn't performed up to par. I'm still supporting these guys because they're doing what they can and were just overwhelmed with the connections received and besides, $3 isn't much, especially if everybody who owns an iPhone pays a pretty hefty price for their cel phone plan. Keep at it guys!

 

[spyker3292]

@kickpush

Invisable mode just isn't a feature in mobilechat. iChat didn't support it for a while either. It's just like how monilechay doesn't support groups. It's not a bug, it's just something it doesn't support.... Yet.

 

[pcjoe]

I'm not questioning their skill or their product. And I don't think it's a joke either.

I just thought it was a weak and fuzzy comparison.

As far as development goes, that's a rather nihilistic argument, designed to cut off debate and limit involvement much like jargon keeps outsiders out and insiders in.

I don't need to have developed my own software product to take issue with a silly comparison, but if you're interested in my cv rather than just trying to be rude, I'll be happy to discuss that with you in private.

Only the first paragraph was directed at you, explaining why the parallel was made. The second part was a general challenge to the thread - not to you directly since you haven't said anything in regards to that (although I should have clarified that better - my mistake, I apologize). I'm not exactly how you're getting a "nihilistic argument" out of this though - the parallel was drawn SO people who don't have experience can relate to it.

That's the exact reason why I'm using these 'fuzzy' comparisons since anything more just wouldn't be understood by the non-tech savvy. People (for the most part) know MMOs are hosted with a cluster of servers, and if one goes down, weird **** happens in the game. The servers usually require maintenance on a weekly basis, etc etc...

I followed up with the second paragraph to lead up with it - at this point, if people have read the last couple pages of the thread, it should be obvious that MC is making huge strides. If people STILL want to make comments like - "THERE'S NO EXCUSE!!! THEY SHOULD HAVE HIRED MORE PEOPLE BEFORE THEY EVEN LAUNCHED!", or other things of that nature - they're just being, IMO, blatantly ignorant and need some solid backup if they're going to continue talking like that. I don't think it's productive to any argument to whine without any valid basis.

 

[slicecom]

@kickpush

Invisable mode just isn't a feature in mobilechat. iChat didn't support it for a while either.

Well how do you explain the Appear Offline switch when you create a new status? It SHOULD work, but it doesn't.

 

[spyker3292]

Well how do you explain the Appear Offline switch when you create a new status? It SHOULD work, but it doesn't.

huh? Under status there is just available, away, and offline. Is this switch in settings?

 

[diesel]

If people STILL want to make comments like - "THERE'S NO EXCUSE!!! THEY SHOULD HAVE HIRED MORE PEOPLE BEFORE THEY EVEN LAUNCHED!", or other things of that nature - they're just being, IMO, blatantly ignorant and need some solid backup if they're going to continue talking like that. I don't think it's productive to any argument to whine without any valid basis.

I fail to see what you mean by "need some solid backup if they're going to continue talking like that". What backup? no one needs to prove anything to you. the app is now a 2 out of 5 star app, rated worse than even aim and palringo. the servers could not handle capacity for days after their launch. this is fact. no one needs to backup anything when they are pissed at the fact that money was paid and in return they received a product that didn't work as advertised, for days, and even still looking at this thread and at recent reviews on the app store, for enough people, the app still doesn't work today, a week after launch.

yes the devs are working on fixing the problems, we get that. Still if people paid for a product that is not working for them today, with promises that it will work "eventually". I believe people have a right to be pissed and to complain and say the developers handled the launch poorly. this requires no backing up.

 

[slicecom]

huh? Under status there is just available, away, and offline. Is this switch in settings?

Tap the "+" button at the top of the status page.

 

[wronski]

Well I needed to use it at one point today and got 3 "Cannot connect to MobileChat" messages instead.

 

[pcjoe]

I fail to see what you mean by "need some solid backup if they're going to continue talking like that". What backup? no one needs to prove anything to you. the app is now a 2 out of 5 star app, rated worse than even aim and palringo. the servers could not handle capacity for days after their launch. this is fact. no one needs to backup anything when they are pissed at the fact that money was paid and in return they received a product that didn't work as advertised, for days, and even still looking at this thread and at recent reviews on the app store, for enough people, the app still doesn't work today, a week after launch.

yes the devs are working on fixing the problems, we get that. Still if people paid for a product that is not working for them today, with promises that it will work "eventually". I believe people have a right to be pissed and to complain and say the developers handled the launch poorly. this requires no backing up.

Yeah; I guess that's true. I don't really have anything to say, you shut me down pretty good

I was just annoyed at people whining like they knew what was best, and then whining just to whine. It's like, you paid more than that for lunch probably - this isn't elementary school anymore, we get the point it doesn't work... It just sounds a bit ridiculous that people are throwing hissy fits about a $3.00 application in its first release, and demanding refunds. It's like damn - that's some serious hate there. You can be disappointed, but how are you going to say they should have hired all of these developers before launch, or pushed out like a crap load of extra servers, or whatever else?

You're right - you don't NEED a reason to complain, or prove anything to anyone, but like... I dunno; I guess I'm just at a loss for words with some of this. Saying what the alternatives were, how hush hush Apple is with everything, I don't really think they could have done much to avoid it.

Someone earlier in the thread was saying they should have (obviously) had a secondary program/server to spawn connections to test their load. I think that would be a great idea except for the fact that they need an equal number of aim/msn/etc accounts. Who is going to make 10,000 aim/msn/etc accounts? There was no way to even gradually take in people in small batches to test due to how Apple handles the App Store. It seems like it went from 50-100 testers to tens of thousands of people. At the very least, I can't really think of a method they could have done a 'reasonable' stress test before actual release.

This is all just my fellow developer compassion talking though; most people don't really care what the reason is, so eh :-/

 

[diesel]

Yeah; I guess that's true. I don't really have anything to say, you shut me down pretty good

I was just annoyed at people whining like they knew what was best, and then whining just to whine. It's like, you paid more than that for lunch probably - this isn't elementary school anymore, we get the point it doesn't work... It just sounds a bit ridiculous that people are throwing hissy fits about a $3.00 application in its first release, and demanding refunds. It's like damn - that's some serious hate there. You can be disappointed, but how are you going to say they should have hired all of these developers before launch, or pushed out like a crap load of extra servers, or whatever else?

You're right - you don't NEED a reason to complain, or prove anything to anyone, but like... I dunno; I guess I'm just at a loss for words with some of this. Saying what the alternatives were, how hush hush Apple is with everything, I don't really think they could have done much to avoid it.

Someone earlier in the thread was saying they should have (obviously) had a secondary program/server to spawn connections to test their load. I think that would be a great idea except for the fact that they need an equal number of aim/msn/etc accounts. Who is going to make 10,000 aim/msn/etc accounts? There was no way to even gradually take in people in small batches to test due to how Apple handles the App Store. It seems like it went from 50-100 testers to tens of thousands of people. At the very least, I can't really think of a method they could have done a 'reasonable' stress test before actual release.

This is all just my fellow developer compassion talking though; most people don't really care what the reason is, so eh :-/

i believe that for any paid app that is not working up to expectations, be it one penny or 3 bucks as in the case of mobilechat, and if the purchasers did not complain or "whine" as you put it, then there would be very little incentive for the developers to get their collective asses in gear and correct the problems. in the case of mobilechat, if i had to guess, the number of people requesting refunds must be pretty significant, and those asking for refunds have to go through apple, so i'm sure there is a lot of pressure from apple on the mobilechat guys to get things fixed. this would not be the case if people did not exercise their right to complain for a non working product. i agree with you on the price, it really is nothing to cry about. i paid the 3 bucks when mobilechat first came out. i played with it for about half an hour and realized the UI design wasn't for me but it was functional in its own clunky way. Then when everyone else jumped onto mobilechat and the servers got overloaded and i wasn't able to log in for days, i complained.....harshly. but i never asked for a refund nor do i plan on asking for one because 3 bucks is nothing to me. however, as a matter of principle, i will complain so that they know that the app is still not working up to any reasonable expectations.

the mobilechat guys have a great opportunity here, probably at least a month head start on other well known IM apps such as beejive and they really need to take advantage of this opportunity. first impressions go a long way, and yes they have been active on their blogs providing updates and such and i applaud them for that, however a week later, they need to stop talking the talk and begin to walk the walk by showing tangible results. And i don't mean results for a few lucky users here and there, but for the masses. however a week later, the most recent reviews on the app store have been 1 star reviews, even to this day. they are pissing away their window of opportunity to build a large and potentially loyal user base. lucky for us all, we live in a capitalistic society and some other company and IM app maker will come along and fill the void being left by sub/non performing apps such as mobilechat. then this long thread will fall by the wayside. until then, let us rightfully complain so that the mobilechat devs will know that everything is still not all right. i believe this is the best and perhaps only way to ensure that the app and their services will work sooner rather than later. at least that is my opinion

 

[pcjoe]

i believe that for any paid app that is not working up to expectations, be it one penny or 3 bucks as in the case of mobilechat, and if the purchasers did not complain or "whine" as you put it, then there would be very little incentive for the developers to get their collective asses in gear and correct the problems. in the case of mobilechat, if i had to guess, the number of people requesting refunds must be pretty significant, and those asking for refunds have to go through apple, so i'm sure there is a lot of pressure from apple on the mobilechat guys to get things fixed. this would not be the case if people did not exercise their right to complain for a non working product. i agree with you on the price, it really is nothing to cry about. i paid the 3 bucks when mobilechat first came out. i played with it for about half an hour and realized the UI design wasn't for me but it was functional in its own clunky way. Then when everyone else jumped onto mobilechat and the servers got overloaded and i wasn't able to log in for days, i complained.....harshly. but i never asked for a refund nor do i plan on asking for one because 3 bucks is nothing to me. however, as a matter of principle, i will complain so that they know that the app is still not working up to any reasonable expectations.

the mobilechat guys have a great opportunity here, probably at least a month head start on other well known IM apps such as beejive and they really need to take advantage of this opportunity. first impressions go a long way, and yes they have been active on their blogs providing updates and such and i applaud them for that, however a week later, they need to stop talking the talk and begin to walk the walk by showing tangible results. And i don't mean results for a few lucky users here and there, but for the masses. however a week later, the most recent reviews on the app store have been 1 star reviews, even to this day. they are pissing away their window of opportunity to build a large and potentially loyal user base. lucky for us all, we live in a capitalistic society and some other company and IM app maker will come along and fill the void being left by sub/non performing apps such as mobilechat. then this long thread will fall by the wayside. until then, let us rightfully complain so that the mobilechat devs will know that everything is still not all right. i believe this is the best and perhaps only way to ensure that the app and their services will work sooner rather than later. at least that is my opinion

You make good points; I see where you're coming from. It just kind of feels like the complaining about the same points isn't going to do much. When I first tried the app it didn't work at all. In contrast, I just turned on my iPhone now, connected to my aim account, and stared chatting with a friend over MC. I honestly wouldn't use it now except for 'testing' since it is still unstable, but they're pulling it together. You say they need to stop talking the talk and walking the walk... I think they are? They can't work magic, but they are pushing out stuff as fast as possible. The service feels like it's getting better day to day; from Shaun's/Saverio's comments, it almost seems like they're pushing out new builds of the server code on sometimes a daily basis. I think it's rare you a small team of a few programmers go through so much to fix their service.

I like small teams like this that can instantly push out small updates and make the service better consistently, and relatively quick. When a big company makes something and fails HARD, it feels like we need to wait forever for a decent fix. It's like hell, Super monkey ball STILL hasn't come out with a patch that lets you adjust the sensitivity, even though EVERYONE complains about it. AIM still crashes on me and generally sucks. How hard is it to move up the recommended text bubble to ABOVE the text window vs below it? Ever try typing Japanese in aim? It's near impossible sometimes since while in English you only get one bubble, but in Japanese mode the recommendation bubble spans the entire width of the screen. Furthermore, you NEED to follow the recommendations to convert your hiragana to kanji. It took them forever just to add an explicit sign off button. I'm just grateful the developers of MC actually listen to the community, and we're actually getting stuff fixed that we report.

Either way, I think MC is going to be pretty bad ass in the near future, especially since they just bought Alex in.

 

[Niiro13]

How hard is it to move up the recommended text bubble to ABOVE the text window vs below it?

Actually, it's pretty difficult. I haven't figured a way yet. It's always under the text field.

I think it's just how Apple decided to place the bubble in the SDK. Why it doesn't work like SMS? No idea.

 

[pcjoe]

Actually, it's pretty difficult. I haven't figured a way yet. It's always under the text field.

I think it's just how Apple decided to place the bubble in the SDK. Why it doesn't work like SMS? No idea.

Haha, I had no idea Well, it seems like the MC developers figured out the magic sauce since theirs are placed above the line. If you require it in your application, maybe you should give them an e-mail or something and see how they did it.

 

[dranakin]

Ouch, I'm afraid it may be September (and 2.1) by the time we get the 3.0.2 update.

 

[noisebleed]

omg, you guys are still complaining.

wait for an update, if you want to make it faster... go help the team, they will pay you... until then... do something else with your whiny selves.

note: i also bought the app, yes it sucks CURRENTLY but that goes for a lot of software, games etc...

just... be patient. or... delete it... ask for a refund at apple care.

end of statement.

note #2: please be aware this is a reply, to the thread, not a specific quote... don't feel offended if you think i targeted you specifically... lulz serious forums. -whine whine- ( i could go to work, or play games... or sports, no no, i'm going to whine on a non official app site all day )

 

[spyker3292]

@slicecom ahh, never noticed that.

@above totally agree.

 

[njchris]

end of whine about whiners

Fixed your post.

 

[nolatron]

I'd love to see a version come out where I can install the backend proxy software on my own box on my dedicated IP line at the house and set the App to connect that rather than to MC's servers.

Seems it would be a lot more stable with only 1 user on it than thousands.