title: iOS 5 - Include chat within application
body: <p>I am developing a iOS 5 application and we have to include a chat application within it. </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>The chat have to show the messages and the list of connected users (users in the chat tab in the app). </li>
  <li>There are two types of users (normal users and administrators). </li>
  <li>An user is tagged as administrator in the CMS. The administrators can kick, ban, unban and delete messages. </li>
  <li>All the users can send messages to a chat window. </li>
  <li>There are not private chats.</li>
  <li>Users can select a text in the chat and for example call the dictionary to search a word.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>One option is to use sockets, as explained in <a href="http://www.raywenderlich.com/3932/how-to-create-a-socket-based-iphone-app-and-server" rel="noreferrer">http://www.raywenderlich.com/3932/how-to-create-a-socket-based-iphone-app-and-server</a>. 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.</p>
  
  <p>I have examined this jabber client for iOS:  <a href="http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/iphone/building-a-jabber-client-for-ios-xmpp-integration/" rel="noreferrer">http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/iphone/building-a-jabber-client-for-ios-xmpp-integration/</a> 
  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.</p>
  
  <p>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.</p>
  
  <p>Any experience with node.js or nowjs?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>