Gaming News Journal: Verbs: hands on with the stylish new iPhone chat client

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Verbs: hands on with the stylish new iPhone chat client

Verbs is a brand new entry into the crowded market of chat clients for iOS devices, but it's got a couple of factors that make it worth considering over alternatives like Meebo, Beejive and Trillian. First and foremost, Verbs is gorgeous. It's got an extremely clean design, with Retina-ready graphics and lots of fantastic details that make it a joy to use. Second, it supports uploading and sharing files in chat via CloudApp. Multitasking, a must for any iPhone chat app, is also part of the package. At $2.99 in the App Store, Verbs is slightly less expensive than its paid competitors, although still more expensive than the free Meebo app.

Although Verbs is quite possibly the best-looking chat client available on the iPhone, it's not without some serious drawbacks. The biggest problem is that it only supports Google Talk right now -- AIM support is on the way -- so it's currently outclassed by multi-protocol competitors. The other problem is that the CloudApp feature, while cool in theory, is unreliable in practice. I'm not sure whether it's due to an issue with Verbs or an issue with CloudApp, but files will often upload to the cloud without being sent to your chat buddy. Including other cloud sharing options -- Dropbox, anybody? -- would give Verbs a huge boost.

Now that we've been over the pros and cons of Verbs, scope out the gallery below for a closer look at that beautiful user interface.

Gallery: Hands-On With Verbs Chat Client for iOS