Verbs

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

Just released today, Verb is a new instant messaging app for iOS that improves greatly on AIM for iPad and AIM for iPhone. It’s significantly more elegant, but even better it’s a multi-platform client much like Adium, one of my all-time favorite programs, which means it works with Google Chat and Facebook as well as AIM.

Verbs

In spite of all the alternatives and its diminishing cool, I still rely heavily on instant messaging, so I was happy to see this released. Plus, today only, Verb is just US$0.99, which is a bargain for a universal-class app; Verb runs on both iPhone and iPad. Find out more here.

+

7 Comments

  1. Just a quick note: Verbs has been available on the iPhone for some time now. This release makes Verbs a universal app, allowing it to be used on both iPhone and iPad.

  2. It may only be $0.99, but it should be noted that some important features are crippled at that price. An in-app upgrade of $4.99 is required to unlock push notifications and the ability to stay logged in for more than 10 minutes while the app is in the background. I suspect this helps defray the costs of keeping a server running on the backend to keep you logged in. So really it’s more like a $6 app, which may still be a good deal.

  3. Yeah, I was pretty excited about the app, and bought it as soon as I saw the write-up… Then saw the $4.99 upsell. As David pointed out, it may be worth it @ $6.00, but it’s a bit crippled (and non-obvious) what you’re [not] getting @ $0.99.

    You know how many gumballs and games of Dragon’s Lair I could have played for that $0.99┐!?А

    =)

  4. Great point folks. I should’ve paid more attention to the upsell, which on closer inspection is not that great. I was just excited to see a decent-looking IM client make it to market.

  5. Disappointed to see people complain about a whole $5 in-app purchase. This developer has put in a ton of time making the best IM app out there, better than anything the big companies are doing.

    I would suggest that the problem is not the developer’s pricing, but your expectations. If you want a free, terrible app then go ahead and use one. For those of us who appreciate quality design and engineering, we recognize that quality comes at a price.

  6. @Pat – I think if you look at the complaint David and I made, it was couched in the conceit that this may be a perfectly good $6.00 app. I paid more for BeeJive IM, a very similar app ($9.99).

    So it’s not the cost, it’s the fact that Verbs needs another $5.00 to be the “best IM app out there”, and it wasn’t immediately obvious until after buying the product. Shame on me for not investigating further – it was my fault to buy based simply on Khoi’s two cents (DAMN YOU TO HECK KHOI). Due to feeling a bit ripped off, I have no interest in the upsell. I can’t imagine the developer was going for this effect, because I’m not a cheap customer – just one who doesn’t like to be nickel & dimed for features.

    So to balance this out, here’s my recommendation – buy Beejive IM – I’ve had it a while now (2 years?) it gets regular updates, and it works across a ton of protocols. It’s not cheap, but it does everything and is awesome. Read up on it here

  7. Pat: I think EyePulp echoes my thoughts. It’s not that US$5 is a lot of money, it’s that Verbs doesn’t make it entirely clear that the full product costs more money. I don’t think they’re being deceitful here, I just think it could’ve been spelled out a bit more explicitly. Anyway, caveat emptor.

Thank you! Your remarks have been sent to Khoi.