Greg’s Mind

As I mentioned earlier today, we launched AIM for the iPhone in the Apple AppStore.  This evening TechCrunch posted the top 10 download apps list and AIM comes in at number 2 with over 12K downloads.  The number 1 app is Remote, which was written by Apple to control your iTunes and Apple TV.  I firmly believe real-time messaging applications will be huge on this phone because of the fees that AT&T intends to charge for SMS.  As people migrate to these messaging apps, I think people will see the short comings of SMS.  Here is the top downloads list.

The lines are forming fast and furious at Apple and AT&T stores all across the world and anticipation has reached a furor pitch for the 3G iPhone tomorrow.  But, not wanting to trump tomorrow’s excitement, Apple released iTunes 7.7 that has AppStore support (AIM MusicLink works with iTunes 7.7) and with the iPhone SDK 2.0 posted this morning, apps can now be downloaded and installed!

We have posted the AIM client that we first debuted on stage at the iPhone SDK launch back in March.  The client has been improved with some really cool features new to the AIM client, including gestures to start new messages and switch between conversations, as well as the ability to use the iPhone camera to take a picture and make the picture your buddy icon.  A bunch of people asked how we wrote the client, and the answer is that we used our Open AIM Web APIs to write this client.  The client is free and available on the AppStore now.

A post on Silicon Alley two days ago regarding AT&T’s different iPhone plans caught my attention.  Dan Frommer, writes that AT&T is “screwing its customers by not offering a text message plan in between their 200/$5 and 1500/$15.”  But this is not a problem since there will be “a handful of instant messaging apps” released on the 11th.

The iPhone which, without doubt, has moved the ball down the field as far as smartphones are concerned, I believe is about to change the way all of us do real time synchronous communication via our mobile device.  Since most if not all people will have unlimited data with the iPhone, it makes more sense to use a messaging client rather than pay per SMS.  Messaging clients bring with it, presence, rich-text messages, user customization, such as status, avatars, etc, a familiar experience, and most importantly the ability to do advanced features like photo sharing and file transfer, both of which cannot be done via MMS since it is not supported on the iPhone right now.

SMS is not going away over night, but the iPhone will make it more attractive to NOT use SMS because the IM clients for the phone will be very good.  I am looking forward to seeing what RIM and Android can churn out to keep up.  As I wrote yesterday, here at AOL, we have a very nice AIM client for the Windows Mobile Platform.

Backing up yesterday’s major Open AIM announcement, today during the iPhone SDK press conference, we announced an AIM application for the iPhone. The demo at the press conference is a prototype, and we are very excited to be working with Apple on this. A quick quote from the press conference:

Switch between active chats by swiping left and right (applause), status update panel (”Playing Spore!”, giggles), choosing photos from your iPhone photo library as your AIM buddy pic.

Here are a few pics, thanks to my fellow AOL/TWX employees at Engadget.