Do you love using your iPad as a communication device? Apple's tablet is great for chatting because it's small enough to carry around and big enough to type with comfortably. If you are looking for a handy way to chat with friends on your iPad, you should give Trillian a try. It's been one of the most prevalent chat clients for years, and its creators consistently add new features and improvements that make it a serious contender for one of the best IM clients on iOS, or any platform for that matter.

As you would expect, Trillian works with all kinds of different chat services, so you can use it to talk to your friends no matter which client they call home. The iPad app is packed with features, and it's one that all chatters should definitely try. Trilliant is featured on our Best iPad Apps page, so you know it's a quality chat client on iPad.

Using the App

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When you first launch the application, it will ask you to enable push notifications. I highly recommend saying yes to this, as it will come in handy if you run the app in the background as you partake in other activities on your iPad. With notifications on, you will never miss a message from your friends, which is obviously a good thing.

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If you don't have one already, you will need to set up a Trillian account. This process is quick, but it does require a valid email address. After that, the app will ask you for permission to access to your contacts. It's up to you to decide if you want to grant access, but doing so does make it easy to find other friends currently using Trillian.

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Once you have your account up and running, you are probably going to want to add your favorite chat protocols to the app. Trillian supports AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MySpace, and Yahoo Messenger. You can add as few or as many of these accounts as you like, depending on which services you use most for chatting.

Once you've linked your accounts you can then choose certain contacts to be featured on the dashboard for quick access. This is optional, as you will be able to get access to them either way. If there are certain people you know you are going to chat with regularly, adding them here will come in handy.

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The app features a very simple layout, where everything is featured right on the main page. The contacts you choose on the last step will be featured on the front page for quick access. To chat with one of them, simply click the icon and begin typing as you would with any other chat program. This layout might feel a little weird at first, because it is unlike most chat clients, but once you grow accustomed to it, it actually feels quite comfortable.

If you want to find a new contact to chat with, you can use the icon on the top right of the screen. A search box will open, and you simply type in the name of the person with which you wish to chat.

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The gear icon on the top right of the screen is filled with all of the options you will need to make the most of the app. You can manage your favorite contacts from here, add new accounts and so much more. Essentially, this little icon is the main hub of the application.

Looking for a more traditional list of who is and isn't online? Under the main menu, you will see a Manage Contacts button. In here, you can see all of the people currently online. If you don't have a specific person in mind, but feel chatty, this is where you will want to come.

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At the bottom of the aforementioned menu is a button labeled Settings. Here you can customize everything you like about the application. You can change the way it sorts contacts, whether it shows offline contacts, and plenty of other options to tweak Trillian to just the way you like it.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a chat client that does some new and interesting things, look no further than Trillian. It has a very different user interface that prioritizes the people with which you actually want to talk. The chat client on iPad is slick, fast, and easy to use, so I have no problem recommending it for anyone looking for a new way to chat on their iPad.

Download: Trillian at the App Store (Free)

Have you tried Trillian on iPad? What do you think? Are there better IM clients out there? Hit the comments section and let us know!