Mundu IM: Stay Connected on your iPhone

“Gah! You can’t IM on the phone!” became a ubiquitous saying all over blogs overnight. However, I was the odd one out since I’d already figured out meebo works the first day I got one. That discovery allowed me to be in touch with my friends wherever I was.

However, as all products are, it came with its own share of annoying problems. Slowly, more and more solutions came out, but none impressed me as much as this Indian company’s take on the IM problem, Mundu IM. Although I was reluctant at first since I was used to Meebo, my friend forced me to check it out and I’m glad I did.

Mundu can connect you to more than one IM client at the same time and signs you on much quicker compared to Meebo. That was good enough for me already. Another plus was that it made a really pretty animation to inform you of new messages. It used to “beep” when new messages arrived, but for some reason beyond my understanding, it no longer does.

The app is designed with the iChat-style of the iPhone, which makes it a lot easier to figure out how the conversation flows. However, like all web apps, you won’t know you’ve received a message unless you’re on Mundu. Note to self: Ring Apple and tell poor customer service representative on the other end to fix the iPhone’s multi-tasking abilities…

Mundu isn’t perfect; I wouldn’t advise chatting with more than 3 people at once since it becomes really hard to manage all your IM’s. Furthermore, green text on a green background makes it hard to read. If you have uncooperative friends like mine, who refuse to change their text color, then the user experience is really hindered. The service can sometimes become really slow, but this really depends on network conditions and other factors. Your mileage may vary.

Apart from the downers, I must rank Mundu at the top with easy switching to your several chat boxes, design and name. And hey, Moon-doo sounds pretty cool! Oh and it doesn’t work on your personal computer – trust me, I tried. To get chatty with your friends, head over to iphone.mundu.com on your iPhone.

Speaking of typing on the iPhone, here’s another reader question. How do you like the iPhone keyboard?

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