TinyBuddy: AIM for iPhone from AOL, sort of

There’s a new web-based instant messaging client for the iPhone, and it’s kind of, sort of, from AOL. It’s TinyBuddy, written by AOL employee James Burke and hosted by the AOL Greenhouse. It’s not an official AOL project, but Burke’s used his up-close knowledge of how AIM works to make a instant-messaging client for iPhone that’s a bit different than all the others when it comes to security.

TinyBuddy uses AOL’s OpenAuth servers to authenticate you, meaning that the TinyBuddy web site never touches your password — so it can’t store it and use it later. Instead, TinyBuddy’s embedded JavaScript only handles a special authentication token provided by AIM. I’m pretty sure the other people doing AIM clients for the iPhone, such as JiveTalk, aren’t harvesting passwords for re-sale to criminals, but TinyBuddy’s approach makes the whole thing even more transparent.

To try TinyBuddy, just type tybyim.com into your iPhone browser. And for more on Burke’s development effort, visit his Tiny Notes page.