Schaller: The long journey towards good free video conferencing [LWN.net]

Schaller: The long journey towards good free video conferencing

Posted Oct 16, 2012 6:42 UTC (Tue) by merge (subscriber, #65339) [Link]

Yes and it's by far the best XMPP (well GTalk) client on Android. That's so sad. I haven't found ANY real (normal XMPP) client that stays connected so well, uses so little battery and has working presence. Only basic XMPP functionality, but that the "Talk" app does that per-fect-ly well. That's exactly what it takes to convince people to use it. And I do, because I use XMPP.

But if you want to use just any other XMPP server, you have to cope with crappy (if you're not careful "fake" (another company in-the-middle)) client apps.

Schaller: The long journey towards good free video conferencing

Posted Oct 16, 2012 8:50 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

I can recommend Xabber, a client rich in functionality which was supposed to have its source code released, but I don't know what became of that. It works well, has logging and contact list integration (which almost works).

There is also Yaxim, which is completely free and works well but doesn't come with any of the extra functionality.

Those are all chat only. Voice and video chat is probably better served using SIP on Android as there is some native support for it.

OT: XMPP clients on Android

Posted Oct 16, 2012 14:23 UTC (Tue) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]

I can find yaxim on F-Droid, as well as Beem and Gibberbot, but not Xabber. Is it free software?

OT: XMPP clients on Android

Posted Oct 16, 2012 15:49 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

They ran a "If we get X followers on Twitter in a month, we'll release Xabber under GPLv2" campaign a month or two ago (I think X was either 500 or 1000). Not sure if they made it or not.

OT: XMPP clients on Android

Posted Oct 16, 2012 15:52 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> (I think X was either 500 or 1000)

Heh, it's 50,000. Well, it's close in some respect :P . That said, they're at 3,000+ right now, so it's pretty far away. Even though notifications are busted (no LED, sound, and an icon is missing for the bar[1]), the auto-OTR is worth it, IMO.

[1]There's a gap for it, but it's invisible if at the end of the icons.

Schaller: The long journey towards good free video conferencing

Posted Oct 16, 2012 18:29 UTC (Tue) by khc (subscriber, #45209) [Link]

I am not sure what you want is possible. To save battery, it would seem like you have to have push notification, which needs a server side component. Unless you want to host that your own as well, but that's not a solution for most people.

Schaller: The long journey towards good free video conferencing

Posted Oct 16, 2012 18:53 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

Interestingly, the GTalk client appears to use some entirely custom protocol. It's some sort of best-effort sync-as-you-can thing, like the GMail client, not XMPP at all. (You can see if you send messages via another client, they magically appear on your phone in real-time as if you were typing them there, which I'm pretty sure XMPP can't do.)

I assume that's their magic - the actual XMPP client is running on their server, and can maintain presence and receive messages even while your phone's connectivity is wobbly.