iOS 5 - Include chat within application
I am developing a iOS 5 application and we have to include a chat application within it.
- The chat have to show the messages and the list of connected users (users in the chat tab in the app).
- There are two types of users (normal users and administrators).
- An user is tagged as administrator in the CMS. The administrators can kick, ban, unban and delete messages.
- All the users can send messages to a chat window.
- There are not private chats.
- Users can select a text in the chat and for example call the dictionary to search a word.
One option is to use sockets, as explained in http://www.raywenderlich.com/3932/how-to-create-a-socket-based-iphone-app-and-server. The problem with that is that it creates a socket connection with each person connected to the server. I think that I don't need that. Maybe a best option is to make the connected users to poll the server for new messages. I think it might be another solution which I dont have to code all myself.
I have examined this jabber client for iOS: http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/iphone/building-a-jabber-client-for-ios-xmpp-integration/ The problem with that is that I have a Rails backend and It will be a lot of work to include that server in my rails application.
Does anyone know any third party libraries to include a chat within iOS application? Any tips or guidelines? This is a pretty standard problem and It should be some standard libraries that I can't find.
Any experience with node.js or nowjs?
Thanks!