Microsoft Debuts Windows Live Messenger for iPhone
By Ed Oswald | Monday, June 21, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Surprising as it may seem, Microsoft is pretty darn good at creating iPhone apps. It’s latest entry, Windows Live Messenger, became available as a free download in the iTunes App Store on Monday.
Although the central premise of the app is to stay on top of your Windows Live network and chat with your buddies, the company has added a few additional features sure to please any Live user.
Microsoft has also enabled push notifications, which will alert the user to new IMs when the app is closed. As long as your buddy has connected his or her Live account to other social networking sites, you will be able to see what he or she is sharing on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among others on the social stream screen which greets users as they load the application.
Hotmail access in-application is also provided (you can see it in the screenshot, its the glowing orange icon in the upper right hand corner), although there is no link provided from the bottom menu. That’s a bit of a shame but definitely could be added in a future release.
Messenger is the fourth iPhone application to be released by Microsoft. The company’s first application was Seadragon Mobile, a Photosynth viewer released in December 2008. This was followed by Microsoft’s Bing search app in March, and then Tag, a reader for its proprietary QR code-like offering in May.
I am fairly impressed with the app, and it seems like with each one coming out of Microsoft, the company gets better and better. I’m now wondering if the folks they have developing these should be giving some advice to the rest of the software developers at Redmond on how to design functional apps without the clutter…
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Windows Live Messenger now available for iPhone | kidzmodo.com | Web Sites, iPod, iPhone, Videogames and digital gadgets for kids. Says:
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:21 am[…] Just another reason why it could be difficult to keep your kids off your iPhone Microsoft debuts its Windows Live Messenger, available as a free download in the iTunes App Store since yesterday. There are also a number of additional features (e.g. connections to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Hotmail accounts). Read more at Technologizer […]
June 21st, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Doesn’t take advantage of IOS4 features. Hmm, pretty faily.
June 21st, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Well, this is a first release. I bet you could find about 95% of popular apps don’t take advantage of iOS4 yet. It’s still too early to fail an app for lack of iOS4 support.. guarantee they’ll be correcting that in a matter of weeks.
June 21st, 2010 at 4:19 pm
> I’m now wondering if the folks they have developing these
> should be giving some advice to the rest of the software
> developers at Redmond on how to design functional apps
> without the clutter…
The advice would just be “get a Mac”.
Microsoft’s tools are full of gee-gaw features that demo well and look good on a spec sheet, while Apple’s tools have features that enable you to design better apps. From the GUI design tools to the way the API’s are structured, everything Apple puts into their developer tools is to aid in a better app coming out the other end. And Microsoft’s tools run on Windows, which creates a case of clutter in, clutter out.
Many, many times I’ve seen people given their first Mac at work and immediately they start doing better work. Even though you would think their work would suffer at first in an unfamiliar environment. Windows is a productivity and quality killer. A big problem at Microsoft is everyone there is working with a hand tied behind their back because they use only Microsoft technologies. That’s a big reason why they’re so slow and have such low quality.
June 22nd, 2010 at 4:40 am
Fail for two reason = You cannot change your status and it’s not immediately apparent how to close the app so you can sign out. I don’t always have my iPod at arms reach and I look like I’m available people message me. If I don’t answer they think they’re being ignored that’s not solid design principals.
For now I’ll stick with BeejiveIM for MSN’ing on my iPod
November 10th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
This should be interesting, I've used mostly Yahhooo messenger. I think I might download this today since I just got a new droid…should work like a charm, If I find the app for this. I might have to also create a new account, because I haven't used my account in a while.
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January 17th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
thank 🙂