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RIM Teases With IM Clients – Verizon Gets AIM & ICQ

by Ronen Halevy on Sep 10th, 2008 at 9:10 am EST
32 Comments »
 

logo_aim Every once in awhile RIM manages to completely confuse me. If you read the title of a press release stating: “AOL and RIM to Bring AOL Mail, AIM and ICQ Services to BlackBerry Smartphones Worldwide.” What would you think?

At first I thought that it meant RIM had finally removed all of the stupid restrictions based on carrier for downloading their AIM and ICQ clients. Turns out I was wrong. I tried it from an AT&T 8310 and a couple of friends checked it out for me from their carriers. No luck. Turns out that the only carrier that seems to have recently gotten AIM & ICQ that I can confirm is Verizon. The sad thing is that before RIM got its Gtalk client I was an avid AIM user. Now a few years later I don’t use AIM at all and use Gtalk exclusively.

If you have Verizon you can pick up the clients at:
www.blackberry.com/instantmessaging
OR directly at:
AIM: www.blackberry.com/devicesoftware/entry.do?code=aim20
ICQ: www.blackberry.com/devicesoftware/entry.do?code=icq

If everybody could try and download the clients from their carrier and report back in the comments I would appreciate it. You may need to resend your service books and register on the network to get the new service book required for AIM.

Thanks to Tom & Sovak for sending this one in!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 and is filed under News.
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32 Comments to “RIM Teases With IM Clients – Verizon Gets AIM & ICQ”

  1. Posted by: JFig24
    September 10, 2008 at 9:26 am EST

    I was able to install it on my Sprint Curve 8330. Maybe it will work on other CDMA phones.

  2. Posted by: garypip
    September 10, 2008 at 9:33 am EST

    Works great on VZW 8130.

    Glad to be rid of the Mobile IM icon. Who make that thing anyway a 3 year old!

  3. Posted by: Nelson
    September 10, 2008 at 9:39 am EST

    It’s working on Orange in the Dominican Republic, I registered with the network and noticed the AIM and ICQ service books, downloaded the AIM application and it’s working correctly.

  4. Posted by: Nikolaus
    September 10, 2008 at 9:51 am EST

    I’m pretty certain I can get ICQ and AOL for my T-Mo BB too.

  5. Posted by: Dave Hughes
    September 10, 2008 at 10:06 am EST

    I installed it on my Verizon 8830 with OS 4.5
    As soon as I got it connected and started playing with it, my Blackberry crashed. After the reboot, it seems to be working great.

  6. Posted by: Tom
    September 10, 2008 at 10:15 am EST

    VZW 8830/OS v4.5.0.77 on BES. Re-sent service books, and re-registered on the network. Launched app, and encountered “This application has been disabled by IT Policy.” Oh well, I’ll continue to use BeejiveIM (aka JiveTalk)! ;)

  7. Posted by: Circadianswing
    September 10, 2008 at 10:20 am EST

    on ATT&T 8310 curve, I attempted to download the AIM client and got the error “Sorry, your device does not meet the system requirements that are needed to support AOL Instant Messenger for BlackBerry.” Oh well… back to my IM+ client!!

    I am using a BES Server, but there are no security policies on my account.

  8. Posted by: Robert
    September 10, 2008 at 10:26 am EST

    Works great on VZW 8330!!

  9. Posted by: Curtis
    September 10, 2008 at 10:40 am EST

    I dont get this article and the whole carrier restriction. I’ve always been able to get all IM programs except until recently MSN. MY 8330 form Sprint had homepage links to install Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Googletalk. Now MSN also works. But it all doesnt matter to me since I have both BeeJive and IM+. easier than having 4 separate programs running though I do love how they integrate into all the menus and whatnot

  10. Posted by: John
    September 10, 2008 at 10:40 am EST

    I have had this on my sprint blackberry for about a month now…. Its not new

  11. Posted by: warren
    September 10, 2008 at 10:51 am EST

    Does this go through data or text messaging? Because the old mpobile I’m for verizon used to be through text so I purchased jivetalk. Does this new program now go through data. Or still lousy old text message?

  12. Posted by: Richard Wood
    September 10, 2008 at 10:55 am EST

    Works great on my 8830. But I don’t use any of these since I bought IM+ a few years ago.

    IM+ serves my needs quite well by allowing me to log into multiple gmail/yahoo/aol/MSN/ICQ and other Jabber accounts all at once with one application. And with Free updates for life, it’s a good value for me.

  13. Posted by: warren
    September 10, 2008 at 11:04 am EST

    Does this use data or text messaging??? Thanks

  14. Posted by: Richard Wood
    September 10, 2008 at 11:09 am EST

    It appears to uses data. I’m pretty sure all these new IM programs FROM RIM use data and not SMS. The SMS variations were usually produced by the messaging services (as I recall).

  15. Posted by: Michael
    September 10, 2008 at 11:13 am EST

    AIM is working fine on my Verizon 8830 (4.2, is 4.5 released??)

  16. Posted by: dgiroux
    September 10, 2008 at 11:32 am EST

    Using: BB curve 8310
    Carrier: Rogers Wireless, Canada.
    Aim working perfectly.

  17. Posted by: Ed
    September 10, 2008 at 11:56 am EST

    Not working on 8310/ATT/BES/No secy policies
    Sorry, your device does not meet the system requirements that are needed to support AOL Instant Messenger for BlackBerry.

  18. Posted by: Steven
    September 10, 2008 at 12:59 pm EST

    Working on 8320/TMO/4.5.0.69

  20. Posted by: Mike Schreiner
    September 10, 2008 at 2:43 pm EST

    Working on my AT&T 8300. I posted a thread on Crackberry.com in the 83xx forum on how i got mine working. Check it out. My user name there is KillingWthASmile

  21. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    September 10, 2008 at 2:53 pm EST

    @Anderson
    We linked to bbnews mentioning the verizon release above. This article is about the fact that it has been rolled out to (some/more) carriers worldwide.

    Is there something we missed?

  22. Posted by: Bla1ze
    September 10, 2008 at 3:04 pm EST

    @warren Data..all rim IM clients use data..

    And while it’s not new for SOME carriers to get this A LOT of carriers blocked it from their services before, so that they could charge you for SMS messages suing OZ Messenger…sostill newsworthy for sure..

    All IM clients now work on Rogers.

  23. Posted by: CG
    September 10, 2008 at 4:08 pm EST

    Alltel. Solid. Why does the MSN app suck so bad when compared to the YM app, the Gtalk app, the AIM app, the ICQ app…you get the idea.

  24. Posted by: renee
    September 10, 2008 at 5:36 pm EST

    It worked on my blackberry 8703 with verizon

  25. Posted by: Michael
    September 10, 2008 at 5:55 pm EST

    I installed on my T-Mobile 8320, and I received an error message stating that the app was not configured for my device. The email works great plus you get a cute little email icon.

  26. Posted by: hjthomas1996
    September 10, 2008 at 6:55 pm EST

    Well, it’s about time. Verizon is always a year late in getting everything. Uhhh….

  27. Posted by: Nacho
    September 10, 2008 at 9:36 pm EST

    In Argentina with pearl 8100 works great, at least! Aim for me! Addme hectorivand@aim.com

    Bye

  28. Posted by: sovak75
    September 11, 2008 at 2:23 am EST

    As an FYI to anyone interested the ICQ app also works for Verizon now as well.

  29. Posted by: Jon
    September 11, 2008 at 8:04 am EST

    i agree beejiveIM (jivetalk) is worth the money, but there are also a lot of free chat clients out there that make render the issue moot.

  30. Posted by: Karlitos
    September 28, 2008 at 5:43 pm EST

    I am also using BeejiveIM (jivetalk) and that works fine.

    I am with Telus in Canada with a Blackberry World Edition.