As has been rumored for a while now, Microsoft has released Windows Live Messenger for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad in the US, Canada, UK, and France. The app is available for download from the iTunes App Store. Messenger is already available as part of the mobile Windows Live suite on many devices, including S60 compatible Nokia smartphones, so this release just adds another operating system (iPhone OS 3.0+ is required) to the mix. It's is being released at version 1.0.1, weighing in at 7.2MB, with support for English and French.
The Messenger iPhone app let users IM with multiple friends, view chat history, use emoticons, send nudges, and as share links and photos via IM. Speaking of photos, you can upload them, create albums, and add captions. In addition, there's Hotmail integration: you can read, reply to, and compose emails without leaving the app. The app also has push notifications, meaning you can see if you received a new IM or e-mail when you're not directly interacting with the app. Finally, you can view status updates that your Messenger friends are sharing from social networks like Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, and so on.
Microsoft says that Messenger for iPhone is "a slimmed down and yet full-featured companion to the soon-to-be-released Messenger beta for your PC." In other words, you'll see some features that are not yet available on Windows. Microsoft is expected to release the Wave 4 beta of Windows Live Essentials, which includes the new Messenger, as early as this week.
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