14 DAY TRIAL // Ubuntu Touch 1.0 or, better yet, Ubuntu Touch 13.10, will arrive on October 17, but some features will have to wait until Ubuntu 14.04.
A developer has asked about the integration of third-party chat applications in Ubuntu Touch, but it seems that Apparmor is preventing the developers from accessing the Contacts. This should be fixed, but not in this release cycle.
“In short, for 13.10 an app could be written that uses its own contacts but not the global contacts. Once LP: #1227821 is fixed, the policy group should be able to move to 'common' and then appstore apps would be able to use the global address book,” said Canonical's Jamie Strandboge.
The good news is that the current SMS application is shaping up very well, but it does use you SMS plan. For more details about the state of Ubuntu Touch, you should check out small preview of the operating system.