Yesterday, the Google Talk team released a new web client that doesn’t rely on Flash, making it possible to chat with your GTalk contacts via your iPhone.

As you can see, the iPhone-optimized GTalk client’s interface is clean and simple. It allows you to set your status at the top and automatically sets to away if you close the Mobile Safari window. It also offers a scrollable list of contacts. At the top of the chat window is a drop down that will list any other open chats and let you switch among them.

Ars Technica reports that a significant problem with the app seems to stem from the client’s use of some sort of JavaScript or other method that keeps the browser constantly loading. Whatever mechanism is being used, running the GTalk web client seems to run down the iPhone’s battery much faster than expected based on some informal testing in Ars Orbiting HQ. Even with iPhone 3G’s improved battery life, that could still be a deal-killer for heavy users.

Still, it’s a step in the right direction. With Jabber transports, its possible to chat with users of other protocols as well, so it could be a one-stop solution. This feature might also make it a handy tool for chatting with students and colleagues, who likely utilize a number of different chat clients.