A look at Trillian Astra: A design perspective
Trillian Astra, it’s hot buzz. Sure, it’s not getting the popularity that [wikipedia]Digsby[/wikipedia] is currently fighting through, but its older counterpart, just plain-old Trilly (I’ll call it POT, or POTP for pro) has always been the most widely known multiprotocol messaging client. What makes Trillian Astra useful is it’s combination of two 
important things in all applications: real good content, shown in a real good way. Currently, as of this post, Trillian Astra is still in alpha testing, but pretty soon they’ll take it to the next level. The best part is, While the previous versions of the CS killer app could only run on Windows, Astra has a OS X version also in development, along with an online web IM client written in AIR, as well as an iPhone-friendly version of the web client.
This is an excerpt from Wikipedia that explains the new features from 3.1:
"Trillian Astra touts many improvements. According to the preview website improvements were made in the following areas:
- Interoperability: Enhanced file transfer ability, support for more IM clients, status messaging support, and IMCore technology, which can compile natively on Win32, Linux, and Mac OS X.
- Mobility: Web-based instant messaging, real-time status, iPhone support, online Trillian Astra profile.
- Profile: Better data control and privacy, downloadable contact list, Social Widgets, a new login screen, strong encryption and identification verification, and open protocol.
- Contact List: Tile view, Spotlight search, Drag-and-drop avatars, faster status changes, simple access to
display name, dynamic list height. - Message Windows: Easy image sharing, handwriting mode, knowledge of local time, RSS, ‘Buzz’, saved font styles. (click image for higher resolution screenshot)
- Skins: On the fly skin changes, Themes and colors, improved transparency support, Control layering, skin build time.
- Performance: Skin loading time, redrawing times, network connections, memory usage, and skin variety."
Note: Trillian Astra, while able to compile to all three operating systems, is currently being built only for Windows and Mac OS X.
I have a few complaints/suggestions for the application though:
- MSN/WLM: A commonly used feature on Windows Live Messenger would be Voice Clips, short recorded clips using a microphone. This feature currently isn’t in Astra, and it doesn’t appear to be that they’ll be implementing that in the future.
- Last.fm integration: I think it’d be really cool to integrate Trillian Astra’s personal message functionality with Last.fm, being as it’s already usable in Winamp and WMP.
- In the Cobalt skin, I think the colors are a tad too bright, sometimes to the point that the whites in the window title text appear hard to see, especially in the minimal skin.
- Hopefully they’ll improve the web application being as it’s not very responsive, versus the mainly AJAX meebo.
I suppose those are the only issues I have with the application at the moment.
Since it’s alpha, it’s an invitation based thing. One can pirate the software, but it wouldn’t be worth it because most of the cool functionality would be disabled, such as personal profiles.
Next thing they need is a Twitter, and Facebook plugin. Then they can beat out Digsby’s built-in functionality.