Kik wants to be your go-to messaging client (photos)

After setting up your Kik account, you're immediately asked to upload your contacts to its servers. If you decline the first time, you're asked again (seen above).

The settings screen contains options to control your account information, chat bubbles, notification types, and more.

As you can see, sent messages are marked with an R once they've been read. The default chat bubble is green, although you can change that in the settings.

You can quickly add items to your conversation. Photos from your camera roll, camera or a Web image search are all possibilities. As are user-created memes and hand-drawn sketches.

The slideout menu lets you browse between conversations and integrated services.

If you're not satisfied with the default services for bringing extras in your conversations, you can search and add third-party solutions from the search bar within the app.

You can purchase individual stickers for 40 Kik points (first 100 points are free), or pay $2 and get an entire pack.